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THE NINETY-FIRST 



THE 



FIRST AT CAMP LEWIS 



By ALICE PALMER HENDERSON 



AUTHOR Oh 
THE RAINBOW'S END : ALASKA 

Membei of the Jury of Ethnology at World's Columbian Exposition, 

and of Same at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition: Member 

of the American Association for Advancement of Science, 

of the International Folk Lore Society, of 

Americanists, and Honorary Life Member 

Washington State Historical Society 




Published by 
JOHN C. BARR 

Tacoma, Washington 

Sold only by Prepaid Subscription Direct to the Publisher 



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Copyrighted, 1918 
By ALICE PA LMER HENDERSON 

AW Righla Reurud. 



PRESS OF 

SMITH-KFNNEY CO. 

T«coma, Washington 



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CONTENTS 



Chapter Page 

I. One to Make Ready 1 

II. Capt. Ehrnbeck Not the First Photograi)her 15 

III. Welcomes the First, Which Is the Ninety-First, at 

Camp Lewis ^9 

IV. The Base Hospital 40 

V. Right Forward, Army Nurses 62 

VI. Gen. Greene's Record, Characteristics, Influence 74 

VII. Brigadier-General Irons and His Xmas Greeting 106 

VIII. The 166th Depot Brigade ; 1 16 

IX. Soldiers' Singing and Robert Lloyd, First Army Song- 
Director in the World 1 40 

X. Liberty Library and Prof. Ruby 148 

XI. Liberty Theatre and Manager Braden 157 

XII. Brig. -Gen. Foltz, Commanding 166 

XIII. The 181st Brigade and Commander Styer 194 

XIV. Machine Guns Connecting Link Between Infantry and 

Artillery 227 

XV. New Importance of .Artillery 237 

XVI. The Engineer Corps 276 

XVII. The Military Police 298 

XVIII. Signal Service Corps 335 

XIX. The Quartermaster Department's Wide Scope 349 

XX. The Intelligence School 372 

XXI. Athletics 387 

XXII. Hail and Farewell 404 

Psalm XCI. 
Memorial Day 

XXIII. Hostess House 413 

Mothers' Day 

XXIV. Religious Creeds by Census at Camp Lewis 444 

Red Cross Military Relief Bureau 

XXV. One Man Likes "Wild West" for Division Nickname.. 472 

XXVI. The First— Last 44th Infantry 497 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Page 

Nisqually Plain 2 

Captain Meriwether Lewis 3 

Commodore Charles Wilkes, U. S. N 5 

Sequalichew Lake and Springs 7 

Major General J. Franklin Bell 9 

Frank S. Baker 10 

Lieut. Col. A. R. Ehrnbeck 16 

Lieut. Col. David L. Stone 17 

Sequalichew Springs 20 

Charles B. Hurley 22 

Liberty Gate 23 

Herbert W. Hauck, First Private at Camp Lewis 30 

Screened in Isolation Ward 43 

Medical Corps of the Base Hospital .56, 57 

Miss Jenny Booth, Chief of Nurses, Base Hospital 64 

Miss Ethel Allen, First Red Cross Nurse's Aid 67 

Camp Lewis Base Hospital Nurses 72, 73 

Major James Green 78 

Headquarters 86 

The Commandant, Division Officers and Assistants 88, 89 

Capt. D. M. Welty 92 

Capt. Daniel J. Coman 98 

Lieut. H. D. Hoover 102 

Brig.-Gen. James A. Irons 107 

Col. P. W. Davison, Commanding the Depot Brigade 117 

Depot Brigade Library 119 

Col. Benjamin B. Hyer 126 

Dr. Thomas E. Winecoff 129 

Eli George, First American Indian to Die in the War 133 

Officers' Club House 135 

A Few "Old Timers" (Cartoon) 137 

Robert Lloyd, First Army Song Director 141 

The Quartette (Cartoon) 147 

E. E. Ruby, Librarian Liberty Library 149 

Liberty Library Alcove '. 153 

Periodical Reading Room, Liberty Library 155 

Capt. Braden, Manager of Liberty Library 158 

Brigadier-General F. S. Foltz . . ". 167 

Colonel Harry LaT. Cavanaugh 177 

Col. Cavanaugh, Mayor Rolf and Others 183 

363rd Marching Under Arms in Calgary 186 

Charge, Bayonets 188 

A Bayonet Leap 189 

Chaplain Wilson 191 

Brigadier-General H. D. Styer 195 

Col. W. D. Davis 199 

Honor Guests and Officers of the 361st 200, 201 

Pushball 206 

Chaplain Bronson 209 

Col. Whitworth 212 

Lieut.-Col. Jordan 219 

Lieut. Guibert 222 

Capt. A. S. Foskett , ,[ 232 

Brig.-Gen. Edward Burr 239 

Col. R. S. Pratt .,', 245 



ILLUSTRATIONS— Continued 

Page 

Maj. G. S. Gay 247 

Chaplain Nooy 251 

Col. R. S. Granger 252 

Maj. F. L. Taylor 255 

Sergeant-Major Thomas J. Costello 259 

Lee Whelan, First to Be Buried at Camp Lewis 261 

Chaplain Lacombe and Maj. Bunyas 262 

Col. Samuel F. Bottoms . ". 264 

These Headed the Rodeo 266 

The Firing Signal 270 

Lieut. Stephen Barron 272 

Capt. Mawdsley 274 

Col. Henry C. Jewett 277 

Capt. Powell 281 

Engineers' Headquarters 284 

Adj. Brizou 286 

Capt. Delprat Keen 288 

Capt. Batal 291 

Dugout 292 

Engineers' Depot 294 

Lieut. Milton C. Lutz 296 

Col. Saville 301 

Capt. Thornberry 307 

Motor Truck 310 

Lieut. Col. Allen Smith 311 

Maj. Morris J. Shupe 313 

Chaplain C. A. Rexroad 317 

Lieut. Col. Harry B. Reynolds 320 

The Masonic Ambulance Unit 328, 329 

Maj. Wyman and Maj. Danvers 336 

Field Water Supply 337 

Field Telegraph 338 

Lieut. 0. Lamarche 339 

Signalling 344 

Lieut. Col. F. W. Coleman 352 

Lieut. Col. James F. Como 356 

Field Oven 364 

Lieut. Harold Mallum 367 

Capt. Dieterick Oldenborg 370 

Lieut. F. H. Pugh 380 

Lieut. Warrell Watching Bayonet Diill 382 

Capt. Champion 385 

The 91.st Athletic Directors 388 

Boxing Contest 392 

Thowing Hand Grenades 395 

Stretcher Bearers 397 

The 91st Champion Soccer Team 399 

The Hostess House 414 

Mrs. MacMasters 415 

Interior of Hostess House 420 

The Line of Darbs 426 

Constance H. Clark 430 

Mrs. McCrackin 433 

Knights of Columbus Hall 445 

ElcJer Calvin S. Smith 447 

Lieut. Louis D. Egelson 452 

Interior Jewish Assembly Hall 453 

A. M. Grilley 458 



ILLUSTRATIONS— Continued 

Page 

Chapin D. Foster 46-S 

Y. M. C. A. Building- 464 

Remount Officers 476 

The Dipping Vat 479 

The Remount Library 485 

Interior of Remount Library 487 

Group of Remount Riders 491 

Sergeant Billy Richardson and Sir Julian 495 

Col. Edward N. Jones 498 

Chaplain John T. Kendall 504 

A Great Leap 506 



This book, attempting only to lay away a few Remembrances, 
to indicate some Compensations for those who have given thei- 
dearest to the Service, and who, like Mrs. Greene herself, live on 
bravely and helpfully at Home: a book upon whose blank pages 
they may themselves indite the deeds of those who go, and in 
w^hich, returning from Over There, men of the Ninety-First may 
re-live their experiences at Camp Lewis this inadequate book is 

DEDICATED 

To Major-General Henry A. Greene, U. S. N. A. 
First Commandant of Camp Lewis, which Camp, Namesake of this 

Region's 
First Explorer, ■was of its kind the 

First Gift to the United States in all its History, and the 
First Cantonment Completed for the 
First National Army our Country had assembled: 

To Major-General Greene, Commanding the 
First of Divisions trained at Camp Lew^is, and 

Ranking Officer in the Honor and Affection of that 
Ninety-First Division not only, but in the v^ridespread Homes of 

those who entrusted their young Men to their Country. 

—THE AUTHOR. 



FOREWO RD 

This book was written w^ith more thought of doing its mite 
for the w^ar, for the men w^ho are fighting it, for their people who 
are giving them, than for gain. 

It was pubHshed without assistance from Anybody or any 
Body. A latter went so far as to endorse the book, a fifth wheel 

if ever it "got to go" published, it would speak for itself. If 

it died a-borning, the project not the wheel, that endorsement 

would be a wreath upon its coffin and no coffin. To be sure, 

the 91st had brought prosperity but had left it behind, so why 
trouble about that Division? Another had taken its place. The 
king is dead: Long live the King! 

It was published without Anybody's assistance, even in ad- 
vance subscriptions, nor did any civilians even know? they were 
mentioned, will not, unless some one tells, or they draw the book 
from the library. Furthermore, nothing but photographs was 
furnished for half-tones. 

The most entertaining material gathered for this book was 
what was wisest and kindest unsaid, and is therefore unwritten, 
while literary style has been sacrificed in speech to many men of 
many minds. 

The 91st, the First at Camp Lewis is under no obligations 
save and except to the man who will, at the very last, amazedly 
set this: 

"Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith," 

John at that, of Smith-Kinney Co., Printers of the book, whose 
faith, and works, it embodies. If then, any part of its object is 
achieved by the book, Ninety-First, Kin, Descendants, you owe him 
thanks, and so, a thousand thanks, does 

—THE AUTHOR 



I 



The 91st, the First at Camp Lewis 



CHAPTER I. 



ONE TO MAKE READY — FOR CAMP LEWIS — CAPT. LEWIS — 
COMMODORE WILKES — COMMITTEES — GEN. BELL — LYLE — 
ACCEPTANCE 

Nature is always prepared, always her work is well 
forward; it is Man who is unprepared. Neither does 
Nature dawdle nor hesitate; she strikes while the iron 
is hot or the ice cold. Both primeval tools she employed 
in fashioning a worthy camp for the God of War. She 
burned out the mountains and pushed them back with the 
strong white arms of her glacier. Her icy fingers clutched 
the shoreline, breaking it in many places wherein the 
sapphire sea rushed. This much accomplished, the glacier 
receded, having graded the great stretch, leaving behind 
a bed of gravel to drain the area for a people yet unborn, 
material for solid roadways to be trodden by hundreds 
of thousands of marching feet, for highways crowded 
with huge motors run by a force not yet harnessed. Upon 
this stone foundation, one hundred, aye two hundred feet 
through, for Freedom's fortress must be a mighty strong- 
hold. Nature laid a stingy soil, that in a land of heavy 
loam, this should be slighted till the need arise. She 
sifted it over with black lava ash and seeded it with 
grass, frugal Mother Nature, that the land should at 
least pay for its own keep. Indians came, pastured their 
horses upon it, dug the camas, gathered the little wild 
strawberries, but never the wild flowers, though they 
loved them, these, say they, belong only to Mother Earth. 
So the baby name of the waiting land was Nisqually. 
But this was long after. Nature enclosed these low 
hills covered with tall straight trees and no underbrush 

§ 2 



4 THE NINETY-FIRST 

At twenty he volunteered to help the young Republic 
down the Whisky Rebellion and was next year commis- 
sioned ensign (lieutenant) in the regular amry, and 
captain in 1800. For three years thereafter he was pri- 
vate secretary to President Jefferson. In a manner, this 
vast West had accrued to the country by the unbounded 
purchase of "Louisiana" from Napoleon, and the See-r 
Jefferson, persuaded Congress to authorize an ex- 
pedition to discover what lay beyond. Captain Lewis 
was placed in command. Captain Clark second, of twenty- 
eight men, the munificent sum of twenty-five hundred 
dollars was appropriated for special outfit and trading 
goods for the Indians, and the First Exploring Expedi- 
tion by our Army; and one of the most remarkable ever 
conducted, started Westward in 1803, to be gone two 
years. This is the first First of this book. Nothing, 
methinks, is more interesting than the very first time 
anything, almost, happened; and when, like this and 
the many other Firsts you will note hereafter, the accom- 
plishment was so great in itself and so long a stride in 
the progress of Destiny toward this Northwest, it is 
noteworthy indeed. So, throughout what follows, you 
can trace the Firsts gathered upon a silver thread, and 
upon a golden, Compensations. 

To return to the expedition: It ascended the Missouri 
to its turbulent headwaters in Montana, it descended 
the Columbia to its mouth. First Explorers North of Mex- 
ico to reach the Pacific. No other ever accomplished 
more, obtaining diverse information, making observations, 
visiting many tribes of Indians that had never before 
seen white men — another First — and bearing everywhere 
what came to be known as the Flag of Peace, and has 
ever since gloried in the title, the First Flag to fly through- 
out that vast domain, the same that flies today save that 
forty-eight stars fill its blue sky, where then but thirteen 
shone ; the only flag which has ever flown over much of 
this territory — and the only part of the United States 
which can boast that over it no foreign flag was ever 
hoisted. Does not that spell Freedom? "As it was in 



CAMP LEWIS 




COMMODORE CHARLES WILKES, U. S. N. 

From picture painted by Sully in 1845, photographed especially for The 91st. 
the First at Camp Lewis, by order of his daughter, Miss Jane Wilkes, Original 
signature also furnished by her. 



6 THE NINETY-FIRST 

the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without 
end. Amen" 

The Army first, then the Navy, nearly forty years 
afterward, made early preparations for the cantonment 
to be. Commodore Charles Wilkes, U. S. N., had sailed 
the Seven Seas. In 1828 he began the exploration of 
the Islands of the Pacific, years after charting the Sand- 
wich Islands — now our own Hawaiian Islands — and in 
1841 surveyed the countless harbors which the glacier 
had fashioned for Puget Sound. The Commodore was 
a many-sided man. His "Narrative" of this expedition 
was well-named, for its five huge volumes, profusely illus- 
trated with steel engravings, are so delightfully personal 
that it is like spending a thousand and one nights before 
an open fire watching the flames dance, while your host 
the keen observer of myriad experiences, tells you of 
them, never prosy, forgetting nothing of the little things 
you want to know. His books, and they were many, will 
never be old. From his Narrative was taken this quota- 
tion, which, in bronze upon a boulder of granite, com- 
memorates his landing at what is now Point Defiance 
Park, Tacoma: 

"Nothing can exceed the beauty of these waters 
and their safety; not a shoal exists ivithin the 
Straits of Juan de Fuca, Admiralty hilet, Puget 
Sound or Hood's Canal, that can. in any ivay, 
interrwpt their navigation by a 7J{.-gu7i ship. I 
venture nothing in saying there is no country 
in the ivorld that 2?ossesses tvaters like these." 

Yes, and the best is none too good for Camp Lewis, 
which slopes down five hundred feet to this inland sea, 
as blue and beautiful as the Mediterranean. It was 
here that Commodore Wilkes' expedition landed in 
1841 for the first celebration of the Fourth of July, 
West of the Mississippi, on the very site in Camp Lewis 
where now a monumment erected by the State Historical 
Society, marks the spot, between Sequalichew Springs and 



CAMP LEWIS 




Courtesy of Pacific Builder and Engineer. 

SEQUALICHEW LAKE AND SPRINGS 

American Lake. Wilkes renamed the latter that day, 
which was a mercy, for its Indian name was Spotsyth, 
and Sequalichew is quite enough for one such lovely place, 
especially as American Lake was prophetic. It would 
be fitting to gather about that stone July 5, 1918, the 
the second anniversary of the adoption of plans for build- 
ing the cantonment. Oddly enough, Wilkes celebrated 
the 5th; the 4th being Sunday, and the plans date from 
the 5th. 

Of course. Old Glory was raised, and the Commodore 
mentions that one of his party saw an old Indian who 
bore the first flag to be seen in the country. "Letvis and 
Clark presented an American flag to the Cayeuse tribe 
callbig it a flag of peace. This tribe, in alliance ivith 
the Walla Wallas had, up to that time, been always a.' 
luar ivith the Shoshones or Snakes. After it became 
knoivn that such a flag existed, a party of Cayeuses and 
Walla Wallas took the flag and playited it at the Grande 
Ronde. The Residt has been that these tivo tribes have 
ever since been at peace ivith the Snakes, and all three 
have met amiually in this place to trade." 

Americans, how can we be otherwise than proud of 
our flag of peace, its white never sullied by dragging 
through the muck of a market-place, nor borne by them 



8 THE NINETY-FIRST 

who are whipped into battle, but dauntlessly flying 
over them who have chosen, staunching its defenders' 
blood with its own broad stripes, its blue sky serene in 
the faith that while the stars shine, it shall float. 

Of Whitman's ride, which saved "Oregon," as Paul 
Revere's ride did New England, a continent away, there 
is not space to tell, only that it preserved this cantonment 
to our Country against The Hour. 

Then this part of Oregon became Washington Territory, 
and President Lincoln sent Isaac Stevens as its first 
governor, who made treaties with the Indians in 1855, 
since which time, unbroken peace. Young Hazard Stevens 
came with his father from Boston to Olympia, just beyond. 
Commodore Wilkes had written: "The ascent of these 
mountains has never been effected, hut it ivas my inten- 
tion to attempt it if my other dutief^ had permitted." 
It was young Hazard Stevens who, with one companion, 
P. B. Van Trompe, performed the hazardous feat in 1870. 
Accompanied by all the young people of Olympia, who 
crossed this cantonment, for an all-day picnic, to see them 
ofi", they reached the top of Mount Tacoma, the first to 
break the solitude of its eternal snows, to wave the 
Stars and Stripes into the blue itself, to gaze down upon 
the Pacific and five States-to-be, from its solemn viewpoint. 
From yet a higher vantage. Van Trompe looks down 
today, but General Hazard Stevens, his stars won in 
the Civil War, is now living in Olympia, just beyond 
Camp Lewis. 

Washington, along now, is a state. Its militia have 
discovered the ideal spot for annual encampments: 
regulars follow. For twenty years it had been talked of 
and reported upon for government needs, Generals Murray 
and Funston being of many who had recommended 
the site, but there seemed to be no need for hurry. 
Suddenly there was need for hurry. Europe was at 
war, and this country was drawn into the maelstrom in 
that ocean which had seemed to isolate it. Men there 
were who realized that the place had been prepared for 
just that contingency when this coast was drawn, and 



CAMP LEWIS 9 

that a star had been set directly above the shore of 
American Lake. Foremost among these was Stephen 
Appleby of Tacoma. "The old men shall dream dreams," 
but 'tis "the young- men who see visions." Appleby saw 
that cantonment while it was still in the air and deter- 
mined to bring it to earth. So, though there were many 
others, so many that it hardly seems fair to mention 
but one, his name is set here, in glorious company, because 
he not only saw the vision but made his dream come 
true. 




MAJOR GENERAL J. FRANKLIN BELL, U. S. A. 

Maj. Gen. Bell is the next man whose name must go 
down upon the Honor Roll of them who, having seen the 
vision, visualized it for the blind. Second only in com- 
mand of the entire army of the TJnitr;] States, General 
Bell's word would have great weight officially, but the 
man himself is highly magnetic. He is more than a 
convincing and entertaining speaker, he is a real orator. 
At a mass meeting, which packed the Tacoma Theater, 
he was not allowed to end his address for hours, so 
insistent were demands for more. Gen. Bell delivered 
several addresses to large audiences, insisting upon the 



10 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



imminence of war and our unpreparedness. He promised 
recommendation for a Division, rather than a Brigade 
establishment, should the lands be donated. 

Then the volunteer committee, Stephen Appleby, Frank 
S, Baker and Jesse 0. Thomas, went to the Capital. Now, 




ti 



P^RANK S. BAKER 



from Washington to Washington is even a greater distance 
politically than physically, and had these three 
determined men not been furthered by a state of deter- 
mination, they could not have traveled it ,though they 
came bearing gifts. In fact, Gen. Hugh Scott, Chief of 
Staff, asserted that the War Department could not ac- 
cept gifts, there was no precedent. But the West does 



CAMP LEWIS 11 

its own preceding, always has done. General Bell was in 
Washington, District of Columbia, and familiar with the 
advantages of that Washington district in which Columbia 
was invited to house the army which was rushing to her 
defense, he proved a friend at court. Maj. Gen. Crowder, 
Judge Advocate General, true to his name, pressed to 
the fore with the opinion that the lands might be accepted 
without special act of Congress. Next day the committee 
was received by Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, 
after an interview with Elbert H. Baker, of Cleveland, 
father of Frank S. Baker. No, it was not cooked up 
then, despite the three bakers, they only served. Dame 
Nature did the baking and laid the cake away in cold 
storage, to be cut ages hence. 

A month later, came a letter to Chairman Appleby 
from the Secretary of War: 

"Acquisition by Pierce County by purchase or 
condemnation * * * site for division cantonment 
and mobilization and training camp for Puget 
Sound area * * * 108.2 square miles, 70,000 
acres * * * if Pierce County tenders a deed 
conveying * * * for purpose of maintaining 
thereon a permanent mobilization, training, and 
supply station * * * if the United States should 
ever cease to maintain said tract for, etc. * * * 
title to lands so donated will revert to the County 
of Pierce * * * you are further advised that 
as soon as and as long as the appropriations 
made by Congress and the military demands 
upon the mobile forces of the United States permit, 
I will establish and maintain upon said reservation 
a division of mobile troops with such improvements 
as are provided for in said appropriation." 

This was the gist of it. The letter itself, unique in 
the archives of the War Department as an acceptance 
of the First Gift of its kind to the Federal Government, 
has been presented to the State Historical Society and 
placed in its museum in Tacoma. 



12 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Secrets will leak out: never mind who betrayed this 
one. When Mr. Appleby opened a certain letter, Decem- 
ber 2, 1916, he leaped to his feet holding aloft something 
in the nature of a scalp and began, to the consternation 
of the force, to execute a war-dance, solo, joined shortly 
by the other committee braves, seemingly under orders 
extraordinary from the War Department, as the scrap 
of paper which passed from hand to hand bore that seal. 
Then the mayor joined the pow-wow. Two days later 
a large number of chiefs of the Tacoma tribe were 
gathered for council and the campaign started. In other 
words, following the mayor's proclamation of the news, 
150 business men presented a petition to the Board of 
County Commissioners, asking them to call a special 
election to authorize the issuance of $2,000,000 in bonds, 
for purchasing the American Lake site for a cantonment. 
This was done and set for January 6, 1917. Only a month 
in which to bring to Pierce County citizens' attention, 
the importance to the Country, their State, and their 
locality, of the proposed cantonment. Everybody talked: 
the entire county buzzed like a giant bee-hive. Men 
and women volunteered for service and worked without 
pay at the polls. Never was such an election anywhere, 
and of the 29,194 votes cast, 25,049 showed a good heavy 
X over the YES. 

But there were entanglements. J. T. S. Lyle, former 
Assistant Attorney-General of the State, is the man who 
untied the knots and rolled the red tape into a hard 
ball which should be fired from one of the big guns 
on the Fourth. Employed by the County, he went to 
Washington to consult the powers that be, and directed 
the legal battle. When the bonds had b^jen voted, many 
lawyers thought the proceedings open to question. Law- 
yers are strong for precedent, so Mr. Lyle proceeded 
to establish a precedent. Assisted by four lawyers from 
as many cities, he drew up a bill to be presented to 
the legislature at Olympia. This was immediately and 
unanimously passed. Even then a suit was instituted 
against the State Board that decision by the Supreme 
Court should answer any question that might arise. 



i 



CAMP LEWIS 13 

You might consistently think it was now clear sailing: 
money appropriated, validity established, and Lyle put in 
charge of appraising and purchasing said lands. Not 
so. Just as the force was good and ready, the war-cloud 
burst over the United States and there just had to be a 
place to go in out of the rain. The War Department 
asked that enough should be immediately given over to 
provide a 50,000-man cantonment. Columbia has always 
been an improvident housekeeper, or rather, never "fore- 
handed." Pro-German? We have fought in every war in this 
Country since Walter Palmer opposed his six-foot-seven 
body to the Indians. The Mayflower being over-crowded by 
the thousands who crossed in her first voyage, he took the 
next ship. There was a Palmer with Washington at 
Valley Forge; the Herkimers, Var> Ren.saeilers and the 
rest of them officered in the Revolution. Commodore 
Perry in 1812, General Grant and other such Pro-Ger- 
mans are of my blood, rather I of theirs. Frederick 
Palmer, war correspondent, is the only one who has fired 
"The Last Shot." 

It was April, Lyle had 6,000 acres secured, upon 
which contractors might build to celebrate the 4th of 
July, 1917, and not a penny's outlay except for crops 
loss, for a promise had been made that the value of 
every parcel of land condemned should be assessed by 
a jury. Attorney Lyle was not dining out those days, 
nor, indeed, did he sometimes dine in. In fact, the first 
idler to have the slightest connection with Camp Lewis 
since Captain Lewis came over to make preliminary 
arrangements, has not, to this day, been located. For 
three months a score of expert appraisers did their work 
so thoroughly and well and rapidly, that discrepancies 
in the amounts finally allowed were inconsiderable. 

Done, you sigh; again, not so. That was July 5, 
1917. Uncle Sam was delighted with his estate, thought 
it could not be bettered. Springs he had, a beautiful 
lake for yachting, but why had he not secured tidewater 
frontage? So the War Department, Uncle Sam's Chief- 
of-Staff proffered another request, and aid-de-camps 



14 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Pierce Commissioners condemned 3,500 acres, all of the 
Nisqually Indian Reservation, very rich lands, and Camp 
Lewis may now "go down to the sea in ships," may 
build its own warehouses and docks, and perhaps, who 
knows? its own shipyards. No other cantonment in 
the country, in the ivorld, equals Camp Lewis in size, 
advantages, situation, or beauty. 

This all then, is i\ie"One to Make Ready.".. Let us 
catch our breath after this rush and give three cheers 
for — Ladies first — Dames Nature and Columbia, Captain 
Lewis, Commodore Wilkes; Appleby, Baker and Thomas; 
Major-General J. Franklin Bell; Attorney Lyle, and 
Pierce County citizens — Hip, Hip, Hurrah and a Tiger 
for the Committees, and, — and Everybody! 



CAMP LEWIS 15 



CHAPTER II. TO SHOV/ 

CAPT. EHRNBECK NOT THE FIRST TOPOGRAPHER — CAPT. 
DAVID STONE — ROBERTS AND GODFREY AND HURLEY- 
MASON AND NEHEMIAH — THE FIRST CANTONMENT 

Everything we call Real was born Ideal. So the city 
which is now Camp Lewis rose behind the eyes of several 
men, differing in each according to his angle of vision. 
Of them who follow the Dreamers, first of the Doers 
is the Engineer. "And there was given me a reed like 
unto a rod * * * Rise and measure." 

It is generally supposed that Captain, now Lieutenant- 
Colonel Arthur B. Ehrnbeck, U. S. A. Engineer Corps, 
was the first to map that site, but recall, it was Captain, 
afterward Commodore, Wilkes, U. S. N., sixty-seven 
years before. However, on April 3, 1917, Capt. Ehrnbeck 
and Lieutenants Scott, Gross and Bonfils arrived. They 
surveyed two proposed sites on opposite sides of American 
Lake. The Southern was selected. 

General plans for all the cantonments were sent from 
Washington and must be adapted to the camp. These 
patterns had to be laid upon the table-land, fitted and 
cut to the best advantage. Literally, this was done. 
Projecting a survey upon a topographical map, bits of 
paper, cut to scale, were shaped to represent Brigade 
groups. Infantry, Artillery, etc., then pinned on as pat- 
terns, till the material had been best utilized, a strip two 
and a half miles long by a mile wide. To the North and 
South lie low hills and the camp follows them on both 
sides from a rounded end near the station, formerly Du- 
pont, now American Lake, seventeen and a half miles 
from Tacoma. From this U end, the cantonment branches 
in a mammoth wishbone, its ends properly turned a little 
back. Should the Germans pick this bone with us, we 



16 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



shall surely get the long end. It encloses a magnificent 
parade ground, level as a floor, bare of trees save for the 
stately firs which picket its limits. Snow-clad Mount Ta- 
coma guards its Eastern horizon and American Lake 
bounds its West. 




LIEUT. COL. A. R. EHRNBECK 



Upon Capt. Ehrnbeck's map appeared the wards of 
his city, and a white flag marked the limits of every 
military unit. A railway and two roads followed the 
curve of the Wishbone, and two parties of engineers 
now worked upon each side. Roads and streets were 
defined and building groups so skillfully computed that 
as the workmen dogged their steps, for construction 
began July 5, structures rose from the ground exactly 
where they were pinned to the map. Had the engineers 
hesitated in that Titan game of checkers, they would 
have been swept from the board by the carpenters. 

May 26 came. Capt. David L. Stone, whose accom- 
plishment in building more than seventeen miles from the 
nearest city, the furthest of all cantonments from bases 
of supply for everything except lumber, a city of 1,757 
buildings and 422 other structures, lighted, heated, for 
50,000 men, in ninety days, is little short of miraculous. 



CAMP LEWIS 



17 




LIEUT. COL. DAVID L. STONE 



But then he has always been rushed, since the days 
when he was graduated from West Point three months 
ahead of time to fight in the Spanish-American war. 
In at the capture of Santiago, he was in olenty of time for 
§ 3 



18 THE NINETY-FIRST 

the Philippine war. For nearly three years he managed 
to keep busy in one expedition after another, when he 
became commander of Cabiao, town and district. Organiz- 
ing American methods of government and sanitation, 
and starting schools filled the days and he often did 
his sleeping hunting bandits. He returned to the States 
for a short nap, but was sent back, to the Moros. Home 
again, with a wound. Twelve years ago he left destructive 
for constructive work in the Army. These are a few 
of the things that have trained the young Kentuckian — 
he is only forty now — for the huge work ahead : rebuilding 
Fort Omaha, constructing a reinforced concrete post 
at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and taking charge of work in 
the Hawaiian department such as building Forts Kame- 
hameha and de Russey, finishing Forts Shafter and Ruger, 
not to mention Scofield Barracks, near Honolulu, with 
its water system of nine dams, eighteen tunnels and 
five miles of concrete ditches. People don't just happen. 
So when Gen. Bell wanted a possible man for an impos- 
sible job, he just naturally thought of Capt. Stone, and 
rung him up. He was made Major, then Lieutenant- 
Colonel while at Camp Lewis. 

Big boys play follow the leader. Workmen recognized 
a master workman. Labor troubles looked petty when, 
in a uniform resembling butternut jeans, a man keeps 
at it for his country, and theirs. It seemed stupid, not 
to say disloyal, to recognize divided labor. All was Union 
labor. So, though the whole country was pestered with 
propaganda strikes, none were serious at Camp Lewis, 
though 5,000 workers increased to 10,000 from five cities. 
At a banquet tendered him before leaving for Camp 
Dix, Col. Stone blamed the whole thing upon everybody 
but himself. 

"The splendid work of the contractors, Hurley- 
Mason Co. and associates, the fine government 
staff, all trades members, waiving conditions and 
rules under which they ordinarily work, to help 
their government in time of need, united business 



CAMP LEWIS 19 

men, a spirit of patriotism throughout Tacoma 
and Pierce County permeating every man and 
woman." 

Of, course, you see plainly that Stone had little, if 
anything, to do with it. However, Goliath, Defier, was 
killed by somebody and suspicion points persistently 
towards this Stone slung by David. He was was there, 
and heaven knows there's a stone to your hand anywhere 
in Camp Lewis. 

The best is none too good for ours, so Tacoma con- 
tributed an engineer to work out railroad facilities for 
immediate handling of many men and vast supplies. 
W. J. Roberts, foreseeing war, had offered his services 
to the government through his Alma Mater, the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology. He was ordered to 
consult with Capt. Stone who seized upon his intimate 
knowledge of the locality and site. Then he became 
engineer for water and sewers. The exceptional health 
of Camp Lewis troops is largely due to Mr. Roberts. 
All inspectors rate the systems far beyond those of any 
other cantonment. We took Roberts at the flood, where 
he was chief engineer of the Inter-County Improvement 
Association, which is handling millions to keep the White 
and Stuck Rivers stuck, so to speak, preventing disastrous 
annual floods. Forty-two cities and town& in United 
States sent for Roberts for water projects. He's a member 
of all the societies that be. Intensive training! We had 
its benefits everywhere at Camp Lewis. Water came down 
from the mountains to reappear in the sparkling lake and 
springs of Lake Sequalichew and was piped into every 
building. 

Almost as if following a second command, "Let there 
be light," "There was light," light and the power of 
light, a strongly suggestive connection. F. H. Godfrey, 
electrical engineer, a lineal descendant of Aladdin, of 
lamps-new-and-old fame, was placed in charge of the work 
of lighting an entire city, inside and outside, in ninety 
days, and he did it, Capt. Stone had picked another winner. 
In neither sense is our army kept, like the Germans, 



20 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAMP LEWIS 21 

in the dark. Brilliantly lighted buildings have done 
much to dissipate gloomy spirits and so actually conduce 
to the morale of the soldiers. 

It was as if every building was struck by lightning 
before completion, for, ere carpenters had closed in the 
end of a structure, the wires were threading it from the 
other, stringing the dazzling beads of light. 

Oh, it's all like a Giant's fairy story. Huge firs were 
felled and ere the last breath had sighed from their 
boughs, they were thrust into the sawmills, ten, built 
along both sides of the cartonment, sawmills which 
buzzed and whizzed, and shook the sawdust perspiration 
from them as they hurried on, day and night, cutting 
to dimensions till they shrieked from sheer nervousness. 
Flat cars spurred up with the lumber, motor trucks 
carried it, marked, to the spots the paper bits indicated, 
and the last engineer to leave the spot was struck in 
the heel by a board. A swarm of workmen descended 
upon the lumber and ascended upon the building as it 
rose. Literally true, "We build the ladder by which 
we rise and we mount to its summit round by round." 
Think of barracks, housing two hundred and fifty men 
erected in fifty minutes! That was actually done. It 
is quite true that workmen lost their way back to their 
quarters at night, so many buildings having sprung up 
during the day that landmarks had changed. The plumb- 
ers piped the bare body of the barracks and circulation 
began, while the electricians put in its nervous system. 
Wind-eyes shone in its face. Door-lips closed over mouth, 
and the magicians rushed on. 

Once a week, progress was photographed and prints 
mailed to Uncle Sam who couldn't believe his own eyes. 

All barracks are identical: hall through the middle, 
door back and front, half the length mess room and 
kitchen upon the end, other side sleeping quarters, and 
dormitory over all; stove-heated. Behind and between 
the barracks facing the next avenue, are a laboratory 
and shower bath, equipped with the best of everything, 
and a drying house for clothes. Avenues are named 



22 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



for the States contributing to the camp draft, cross- 
streets are numbered, and so are barracks. 

Each Brigade has its General's headquarters and 
Brigade flag over-flying at the Parade edge; then the 
general headquarters for each regiment, officers' quarters 
heated by steam, assembly hall for the men, an infirmary, 
a machine gun and supply company and a post exchange. 

Camp Lewis was the First Completed of all the can- 




._j 



CHARLES B. HURLEY 



tonments. The constructing contract was signed June 
14, the building plan handed over July 5, and recruits 
entered the barracks September 5. It cost $7,000,723.52 
and is the only cantonment built for the estimated $158 
per capita, an enduring honor to Hurley-Mason, since 
other cantonments averaged $220, some costing double 
the estimate. The cantonment could not have built at that 
cost nor in that time, had they not built themselves into 
their work in the spirit of America. As stated, everything 
but lumber was brought from a distance — except Patrio- 



CAMP LEWIS 23 

tism. That was an integral material in every structure, 
and in every part, "from turret to foundation stone." 
Though shy on turrets, all agree foundation stone is 
there with both feet, was the classic wording of a college 
boy. 

Camp Lewis is by far the largest of all the cantonments, 
over 108 square miles, has the greatest parade ground, 
and variety of terrain to suit every requirement, rolling 
ground and flat, dense forests and lush pasturage, fresh 
water lakes, brooks and sea front. 




LIBERTY GATE 



You may not like Puget Sound Winters, but you 
cannot help respecting them. Even as bad a specimen 
as the camp's first, showed the lowest thermometer 9° 
above, while Camp Travis, 1200 miles South, dropped to 
4° above zero — the Japan current, you know. Beside, 
the climate is all but exactly that of France, where the 
troops are to fight, so they are being acclimatized in 
their training. Trench mud, too, will be an old friend 
— or at least, acquaintance. 

Yes, Camp Lewis stands alone, in every way. If the 
country, not counting Alaska, were halved, fifteen canton- 
ments would be on its Eastern side and only one, Camp 
Lewis, on the West, 1800 miles from the nearest one, 
Camp Funston, Kansas. 

Camp Lewis has handled the largest mail and most 
economically, in fact, every inspector, every comparative 



24 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



writer, every foreign officer has awarded palm in every 
particular to this cantonment. So everybody who has had 
the least thing to do with the building of it is justly 
proud, and those who labored with their lands to create 
it, gladly subscribed $4,000 for Liberty Gate, which spans 
the road to Divisional Headquarters, a road which is to 
be bordered by trees. The arch is built of field stones 
below and squared logs above, resembling the old block 
houses which stood in this Northwest as forts against 
the Indians, and connected by a gallery pierced for rifles. 
Foot passengers enter through "sentry boxes." Some of 
the cantonments present illiberal objects lessons of grab- 
bing, Camp Lewis, one of giving. It is truly American, 
"of the People, by the People, and for the People." Upon 
its front a copper tablet bears this unique inscription: 



PRESENTED TO THE 

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT 

BY THE WORKINGMEN WHO BUILT 
THE CANTONMENT 

NOVEMBER, 1917 



One man stands alone, pre-eminent* in universal ex- 
perience, so that countless writers have "proved" Shake- 
speare to be lawyer, physican, courtier, on through the 
list. One Book there is wherein every man may find his 
prototype, and instruction along his own line. Wonder 
if Stone "consulted with" Nehemiah? It certainly looks 
like it, but there is glory enough for both and for all. 
Long, Long ago another people found themselves naked 
to their enemies. Rose then another man to the occasion. 
The parallel is extraordinarily interesting, let Nehemiah 
tell you just how he did it: 



Nehemiah volunteers: "// thy servant have 
found favor, that thou wouldst send me * * * 



CAMP LEWIS 25 

that I may build it" * * * "So it pleased the 
king to serid me and I set him a time." He asks 
for passes: "Let letters he giveyi me to the govern- 
ors beyond the river that they may convey me," and 
also for a requisition upon "Aswph, the keeper of 
the forest, that he may give me timber to make 
beams, etc." Accompanied by his staff and Aids, 
Nehemiah presented his credentials: "I came to 
the governors * * * arid gave them the king's 
letters" * * * (who) "had seyit captains of the 
army and horsemen with me." 

The great project within his single brain prevent- 
ing sleep, '7 arose in the night. * * * neither told 
I any man ivhat my God had put into my heart," and he 
made a careful reconnaissance, riding along alone in the 
moonlight, only his dream for company, from one place 
to another rode he, thinking, planning. Water first, of 
course, 

"I 2vent on to the gate of the fountain * * * 
to the pool * * * then in the 7iight ivent I up 
by the brook * * * and turned back, and en- 
tered by the * * * valley, and returned." 

Like every leader, he kept preliminary plans to him- 
self till matured: ''The rulers knew not whither I ivent 
nor what I did * * * neither had I as yet told it 
to * * * the nobles (the head contractors) nor to the 
rest that did the ivork." Having made his survey, how- 
ever, and settled the water question, he said, "Come, 
let us build up * * * Jerusalem, that ive be no more 
a reproach" — and we, too, had become a reproach among 
nations in that we tarried so long. Evidently, Nehemiah 
had the later leader's power of transmitting enthusiasm, 
— ''And, they said, 'Let us rise up and build.' So they 
strengthened their hands for this good work." 

Now Nehemiah and Stone both were limited as to 
time, so they pursued identical tactics, dividing their men 



26 THE NINETY-FIRST 

into working parties, one "at the furnace tower," our 
heat and power plant, another "against the going up to 
the arrnory, ordnance supply quarters, a third upon bar- 
racks of Eliashit "from the door of the house even to 

the end of the house of E ," you see, they put that 

up all at the same time, too — "from above the horse gate," 
or Remount Station, "everyone over against his house 
* * * and to the going up of the corner against the 
gate," which Nehemiah called Miphkad, and we. Liberty. 

Finally, both leaders could triumphantly announce, 
"So we built the ivall, and. all the wall was joined together 
unto the half therefore: (both cantonments being built 
from ends toward) "for the people had a mind to work." 
Both Nehemiah and Stone were unstinted in their com- 
mendation of their workmen, who evidently only followed 
their examples, for "Neither I, 7ior my brethren, nor 
my servants, nor the men of the guard which followed 
me, none \of us put off our clothes, saving that everyone 
put them off for ivashing." 

There was the same trouble with high taxes and 
complaints: "We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards 
and houses, that we might buy corn because of the dearth 
(cornmeal is an ancient standby, it seems, and the people 
didn't really like it then any better than they do now. 
"There ivere also that said. We have borrowed moyiey 
for the king's tribute and that upon our lands and 
vineyards." There was the same contemptible profit- 
eering — human nature, from the Olden Jews to the modern 
packers. They have waxed so great that they think them- 
selves among the nobles over whom Nehemiah grew 
"very angry" * * * "and I set a great assembly 
against them (even Congress) "and I said, Ye exact 
usury, everyone of his brother * * * Will ye even 
sell your brethren?" You see, "the reproach of the 
heathen our enemies" was quite rightly that brought 
against our ignoble nobles by the heathen Hun, that 
we were Dollar Worshipers. So the income tax was 
instituted. "Restore * * * the hundredth part of 
the money, and of the corn, etc." They said they would. 



CAMP LEWIS 27 

but, with experience old in that olden time, he "took an 
oath of them that they should do according to this pro- 
mise." Even then he knew they would bear watching. 
"Al&o I shook my lap and. said, So God shake out every 
man from his house and from his labor, that performeth 
not this promise." Do you suppose he did? If so, well, 
we should have many palatial homes vacant and many 
great lumber and packing and other corporations' labors 
ended if lue shook out the oath-breaking profiteers. 

Read along, is it not a curious coincidence? '7 con- 
tinued i7i the u\ork, neither bought ive any land (remem- 
ber, the building of Camp Lewis went on before any of 
the land was paid for, and it was a gift) '"Moreover, 
there were at my table one hundred and fifty of the Jews 
and rulers, (staff and contractors) beside those that came 
from * * * about us," — several cities sent workmen. 
The commissary department increased amazingly and was 
a work in itself. Pink teas were out of the question, 
both to Nehemiah's staff and Stone's They were oft 
invited. "I sent messengers unto them sayiyig, I am 
doing a great ivork so that I ca^inot come down, luhy 
should the work cease ivhilst I leave it, and come dotvn to 
yiou? Yet, they sent unto me four times after this sort; 
ayid I answered them after the same manner." Society 
people have always found it impossible to understand 
that a great work is more fascinating than themselves. 

There were I. W. W.'s also, a perpetual nuisance, 
"For Tobiah and Sandballat had hired him, that I should 
do so * * * a7id that they might have matters for 
an evil report." Nehemiah had German propaganda to 
contend against, as his adjutant, one Ezra, reports: "Then 
the people of the land weakened the hands * * * and 
ti'oubled him in building, and hired counsellors against 
them to prostrate their purpose, all the days of" — for 
"Cyrus, king of Persia," read Wilhelm, Kaiser of Germany. 

But in spite of all these drawbacks, Camp Lewis was 
finished in sixty days and Nehemiah beat that record by 
eight, though his was probably a smaller job. "So the 
ivall ivas finished in fifty-tiuo days." The effect upon 



28 THE NINETY-FIRST 

the heathen of his time was exactly that upon the heathen 
Huns of our, "And it came to pass that when our ene- 
mies heard therefore, and all the heathen that ivere round 
about us (the Pro-Germans) sa2v these things, they ivere 
much cast d^oivn in their oivn eyes." Even Politics con- 
spired, "Moreover, in those days, the nobles * * * 
sent many letters unto Tobiah, and the letters of Tobiah 
came unto them, for there ivere many sivorn unto him, 
because he was the son-in-law of S ." 

There is one striking difference, however, in Nehemiah 
& Co. and Stone & Co. The latter were invariably modest, 
letting their work speak for them, and asking nothing, 
though all were bid to come up higher. But Nehemiah 
is exultingly callmg upon his Superior to remember his 
good works, to contrast them with the poor jobs of the 
other fellow, and to reward him accordingly with pro- 
motion or decoration, or both. Nehemiah lives near us. 

But, to return to Camp Lewis: It was One to make 
Ready, now Two to Show. These have shown. So, again, 
Three Cheers for the Engineers, Stone and Northington 
and the constructors, and the Workmen, and a Tiger for 
Nehemiah. 



CAMP LEWIS 29 



CHAPTER III. 

WELCOMES THE FIRST, WHICH IS THE NINETY-a?2fZ-FIR3T 
DIVISION TO CAMP LEWIS; TELLS OF ITS MUSTERING, 
BUGLE CALLS, AND A DAY'S ROUTINE. 

Did the young fellows who sprang from trains at 
American Lake those golden September days, realize they 
were the a's in that primer whose alphabet would record 
History? *I love my love with an A because she is 
America, because she assures, advances, assists, attacks, 
atones: I love my love with an A because she's an 
Ally. 

Strangely enough, the name of the First Recruit at 
Camp Lewis is known, probably the only one, definitely, 
in all the cantonments, since men arrived in numbers 
which overwhelmed receiving offices. Col. Davison was in 
Seattle under orders to proceed to Camp Lewis, and was 
driven there, the first week in September, 1917, by a 
chaffeur who had been drafted. So Col. Peter W. Davison 
and private //. W. Hauck arrived together, and for three 
days constituted the entire Depot Brigade. 

To begin before the beginning, the local draft board 
of every town sending recruits had beforehand furnished 
the Division Adjutant with lists of men entrained. 
Upon arrival, the party handed receiving officers a 



*This game was common at least 250 years ago when Samuel 
Pepys, Secretary of the War Board of England, remarks in his 
celebrated Diary: "Did find the Duke of York and Duchess ivith all 
the great ladies sitting upon a carpet on the ground playing at, "I 
love my love with an A because he is So-and-so, and I hate him 
with OM A because of this and that; and some of them, particularly 
the Duchess herself and my Lady Castlemaine, were very witty." 



30 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



list of names, occupations, physical conditions, etc. 
There were compared and checked off. Physicians 
at hand made examinations of every man from 
cow-lick to sole, and an officer conducted the men 
to the organizations to which they were assigned. At 
the beginning this was, necessarily, hit and miss, as 




HERBERT W. HAUCK, FIRST PRIVATE AT CAMP LEWIS 

the Depot Brigade was not then ready. Men were placed, 
as far as possible, in companies from the same state 
and city, that they might feel less lonely and more 
quickly catch the spirit of competition and comradeship. 
The boys were beginning at the first form in Freedom's 
military school — hard study, intensive training, but its 



CAMP LEWIS 31 

graduates to take the degree of M. A., Master American, 
Soldier! Hurrah for the Rookies! You will think this 
book a continual Hurrah. Well, it is. Quit right here 
if you don't like throwing up your hat and shouting, 
for this whole thing is too inspiring to allow anyone 
to act "the puffek lady," and know this, that it is an 
honor to have any part in Camp Lewis, if it is nothing 
greater than Yell-Master. So there! Hurrah for the 
Rookies! 

From the first, this cantonment has been favored of 
the gods — to be quite up to date, favored of God. Its 
high officers have been one hundred per cent efficient. 
No other man, it would seem, could have so handled 
this difficult situation as Lieut.-Col. Guy Knabenshue, 
of the General Staflf, Mustering Officer. However, he 
is another man who had not just happened. When the 
Spanish-American war broke out, he broke out of his 
editor's chair, in Sanduskey, Ohio. Appointed Second 
lieutenant, he was assigned to duty at the Recruit Con- 
centration Camp at Atlanta: went with 4th Infantry to 
Manila, commanded a detachment of scouts, served as Aid- 
de-camp on Gen. Frederick Grant's staff". Within a year 
he was First lieutenant, went to China for the Boxer 
Rebellion ; back to his regiment in Luzon, campaigning 
constantly to clear out insurgents. Again Aid to Gen. 
Grant who was back in the district. Captain in Monterey, 
Major in border troubles at Nogales, Arizona, Lieutenant- 
colonel of National Army, August 5, 1917, and came to 
Camp Lewis the end of August. He had done good hard 
distinguishing work upon fortifications in the Philippines, 
would not even knock off for an attack of malignant 
malaria which he "camouflaged" to get to China. It 
finally downed him at Tien Tsin where, for years, his 
father was U. S. Consul-general. The only thing German 
about the Colonel is his name, for he is of the seventh 
generation in this country, a big, cordial man, with a 
smile that welcomed the recruits, and which seldom 
failed through the ceaseless rush of days and weeks 
which carried their burdens until midnight, two, three 
o'clock sometimes. 



32 THE NINETY-FIRST 

"This formation organizing was a new game to all 
of us, we had to learn to play it. We went slow at first, 
only 65 that first day, September 11, 1917, but we mus- 
tered in 2700 men in one day, later." The doctors, he 
admits, were sadly overworked. It would never occur 
to him that he was the hardest worked man on the can- 
tonment, which was "some going." 

So Col. Knabenshue mustered in the First drafted 
personnel of this First, this Ninety and First Division 
to Camp Lewis. 

Assigned elsewhere and promoted, Col. Knabenshue 
was followed, in both respects, by Lieut. Col. Richmond 
Smith. Capt. W. H. McConnell succeeded him as mus- 
tering officer and, with First Lieut. W. Q. Van Cott as 

assistant, remained throughout the year. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

Want to follow Jack from the mustering office through 
his day? Then you must waken at 5:45 A. M. — American 
time, — which is black night in Winter. Alarm clocks 
for stay-at-homes, bells aboard ship, bugle calls for the 
army. It is Reveille — not the French pronunciation, 
just Revilly, awakening. These are the words connected 
with its tones by regulars who, by the way, call buglers 
hell-cats : 

I can't get 'em up, I can't get 'em up, I can't get 
'em up in the morning; I can't get 'em up, I can't 
get 'em up, I can't get 'em up at all. 
The Corporal's tuorse than the private, the Ser- 
geant's worse than the Corporal, the Lieutenant's 
worse than the Sergeant, ayid the Captain's worst 
of all. 

I can't get 'em up, I can't get 'em up, I can't get 
'em up in the morning; I can't get 'em up, I can't 
get 'em up, I can't get 'em up at all. 

A bugler wears his instrument, in felt, upon his sleeve. 

Jack's bed has no sheets, and his mattress is stuffed 
with straw, but he is not disturbed by its rustle. He 
is so tired by night that if he hears it at all 'tis as a 



CAMP LEWIS 33 

breeze sighing over a wheat field. His bunk is comfort- 
able. Jack must heed the bugle's call as he never did 
yours. Fact is, Mrs. Mother American, Jack was not 
being built for a prop to home or state. Decidedly he 
needed jacking up — and he's getting it. This is the 
great Compensation of the war. So Jack is up, and he 
must be washed, dressed for inspection, buttoned to the 
chin, ready to fall in when the bugles blow Assembly 
at six: 

// you don't come now, Why you 7ieedn't come at all 
For you'll lose five dollars if you miss this call. 

Jack responds to his name in the roll call and at 
6:15,, pre-cisely, Mess call sounds. The old words are 
a libel upon the really good food. 

Soivpie sloppy soupie, without a single bean, 
Porky salty porky, ivithout a streak of lean. 
Coffee sloppy coffee, so muddy and so mean. 

At first there was some ground for complaint; not 
all messes were lucky enough to have experienced cooks, 
though there were many who had hotel and restaurant 
men, some cooks that were chefs. But as the camp 
settled down to business, classes of recruits qualified at 
a cantonment school for cooks, and now no large body of 
men is anywhere better fed, plenty of variety, of best 
material, prepared under sanitary conditions, and well- 
cooked. You need express no poor-dearing about Jack's 
food. It isn't served in courses, and agate ware is not 
dainty, but uniforms tighten 'till it is "clothes pressing 
done within." Many a man who literally and figuratively 
picked at rich food and elegant service at home, sits 
down to "chow" at camp with a zest which spares only 
the plate. On the other hand, many a man is eating the 
best food he ever sat down to. In fact, we stay-at-homes 
are not living so high as they, these war days. The army 
is not Hooverizing, not by a long shot. 

§ 4 



34 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Many a good-natured gibe or kick is directed against a 
tall slender "hash-slinger" who, a week ago, was sitting un- 
der mahogany at his fashionable club. He has been accus- 
tomed to dressing for dinner, and Mike, there, to undressing 
for the evening meal. Both are attired the same now, 
for Uncle Sam is most punctilious in such matters, and 
khaki is en regie. It is astonishing how strong a resem- 
blance his nephews bear to one another, so attired, though 
the family had scattered so widely, married among 
various foreigners, and traveled such myriad roads to 
this. At first. Jack "could not place Dago;" not odd, 
because Jack usually read a paper while Dago was 
polishing his boots, but it's surprising how entertaining 
Dago is, and all four of the Italians under him in his 
"gents blacking parlor" invested in several Liberty Bonds 
every issue, and Jack remembers there was a service flag 
over the center chair. "So Dago is that star — nice fellow, 
Dago, queer, but full of ideas," new to Jack. 

But you have lingered longer at the table than he. 
There are no chamber-maids at Hotel de Barracks. Jack 
must make his bed neatly and sweep around his bed. 
It is all inspected, too, he soon learns. Drill at seven. 

Get them out, Co^yoral K7Y>ut, 
If you can't get them out, then put them in mill; 
Get them out at a rout, get them out ivith a shout, 
Outside, you soldiers, for drill." 

You want to watch his drill? He may be on K. P. 
today, Kitchen Police. Glance into that very clean kitchen. 
Why does that young fellow look familiar? Because 
you have seen him playing opposite the leading lady in 
many a moving picture. He is playing opposite an ex- 
farmer now, who may have grown those very potatoes 
both are peeling. He bears a name to conjure the stage 
for it is that of Belasco. A week ago, in an elegant 
apartment in Southern California, he was being served 
creamed potatoes, ignorant of their grimy skinning. But 
the fun which ran through his comedies enlivens this 
"new engagement." He insists he's the best spud peeler 
in camp and quick as a Hun digging their eyes out. 



CAMP LEWIS 35 

Last month his income was seventeen hundred dollars — 
and lost: this month it is thirty dollars "and found." 

Great luck! Jack's not on the K. P. this morning. 
Seven o'clock, drill. The first they take up is "physical 
torture," or "up-setting exercises." Those of the early 
first draft, labored under many disadvantages, not the 
least of these being unable, because of no advanced 
recruits, to see what these setting-up exercises did for 
them. Hollow-cheeked, office-bleached many were, ambling, 
stooped; others red-faced from drink, and dissipation, 
shaking and nervous from their deprivation ; college 
boys quitting before Commencement, athletic and eager; 
swells with white hands, miners with black, farmers with 
brown; some speaking our language, but more our slang- 
uage; foreigners with little English, and foreigners 
with none; men of every profession and business and 
trade; loafers penniless and loafers millionaire, authors 
and teachers and preachers ; professional singers and 
players and actors, vaudeville headliners and headlights 
of Science; movie and philanthropist posers; stock brokers 
and banana peddlers, bankers and bank-diggers; black 
and white and red and yellow men ; in brief, all sorts 
and conditions of men, excepting only old men; an over- 
whelming majority eager for the Great Adventure, a 
few unwilling, a very few boobies and cowards. 

Uniforms are few and far between, these first days, 
most men appearing in overalls, the nearest to size ob- 
tainable, the result being that the setting-up exercises 
are not impressively martial. Jack felt he had made 
some progress toward France when he could march by 
fours in a squad, eight men, the smallest army section, 
with its corporal in the center to bellow orders. In 
fact. Jack became corporal himself soon, for, as he whim- 
sically says, "You can't keep a big man down." A 
corporal is the lowest officer in the army, non-commis- 
sioned at that. There is even a lance corporal who is 
just an acting corporal, but Jack skipped him, advancing 
as he insists, "by leaps and bounds." As corporal, he 
sets and relieves sentries and receives thirty-six dollars 



36 THE NINETY-FIRST 

a month. It is highly entertaining to hear the men's com- 
ments on their pay, insufficient to many army privates 
for cigarette bills, to others a decent living, since Uncle 
Sam settles for transportation, board, lodging, doctor, 
dentist and medicine. At any rate, ours is by far the 
best paid army the world has even known, and it always 
is paid. 

But it isn't the money increase that Jack rejoices in, 
but that bit of felt sewed upon his sleeve, half way 
between shoulder and elbow, that chevron which tells 
of advance by reason of merit and hard work. The first, 
from ordinary private and bugler at thirty dollars, to 
first-class private at three dollars more, enables him to 
wear the insignia of his corps upon his sleeve, a horse's 
head for farrier, cook's cap, saddler's knife, mechanic's 
crossed mallet and pick, same with palm underneath for 
chief mechanic field artillery, signal flags, etc. The lance 
corporal's point of one line, adds another for a corporal, 
and two for the sergeant, from to serve. He it is who 
instructs recruits in company discipline and forming 
ranks, is general boss and butt for witticisms. From com- 
pany sergeant at thirty-eight dollars and three stripes 
in the point of his chevron, he advances to sergeant- 
major and as bandleader draws eighty-one dollars. The 
corps is shown by the insignia below the point, and 
his degree by the lines under that. The sergeant-major 
is highest non-commissioned officer in the army. As 
for importance, officers rank themselves : 1, second- 
lieutenant (lowest commissioned), 2, top-sergeant, 3 major- 
general. 

Jack has still to salute almost every man first. Of 
course, you can tell a private as far as you can see him, 
by his canvas leggings and his colored hat cord. Officers 
wear spiral cloth leggings or leather puttees. 

All the time we have been talking. Jack has been 
drilling. Here and there near the barracks, bodies of 
men are endeavoring the first rudiments of war. Young 
lieutenants, themselves not long graduated from a train- 
ing camp, are striving to train their men for the captain 



CAMP LEWIS 37 

to handle as a company later. Lieu-tenant means holding 
in place of, you know. All are very earnestly at it; now 
that at last we are in the war, we want to make up for 
that lost, that eternally lost, time. And beware of that 
man, or that nation, which is slow to anger. Everywhere 
about Camp Lewis there is, and was from its first day, 
an eager earnestness that is most inspiring even to a 
casual onlooker, and which is contracted by every recruit 
who strikes the camp. An army in the making, an army 
while you wait, while They wait, those poor Belgian 
and French women who know what war means, who are 
sufi'ering sucn hell horrors while you are safe at home, 
or here visiting Jack. 

After noon, more drill, with intervals of rest, the men 
sitting in a wide circle upon the ground that lovely Fall, 
each group listening to a young officer reading and 
explaining this new testament of war, reverently it is 
said, the manual of arms or special instructions to the 
soldiers. Even the games were contrived to further 
fighting efficiency. See that board carried rapidly by a 
private at each end down two lines of facing men. It is 
like a disaster coming upon you, you down it or it downs 
you. As the board approaches, every man must leap it. 
Sounds simple, almost silly, but it is neither. Some men 
are flighty and spring too soon, other are slow-witted 
and delay a second too long. Both are disastrous, arousing 
shouts of ridicule. Indecision in battle would cost a 
life, mayhap many. 

"What I learned of physiology at school is rot," asserts 
a former clerk, "why I have one thousand three hundred 
thirteen and one-half bones, one was broken today on 
the rack of physical torture ; and I have one million muscles 
every one up in arms. It's a riot." Yet, it was not 
long before that very boy was pitching for a base-ball 
game after hours of drill or a long hike. It was most 
interesting to note how rapidly recruits hardened to drill, 
grew quick to hear, to do, acquired soldierly bearing, 
lost their irresponsible air, gained dignity. Yes, dignity, 
they found it in obedience, in the consciousness of steady 



38 THE NINETY-FIRST 

acquisition of a man's worth for battling in the fiercest 
war the world has suffered. And co-operation! Never 
was so democratic an army, for the privates are largely 
college-bred, learning literally by heart of officers, men 
big enough to lose nothing of dignity by recognizing 
manliness, the result being that all deference is accorded 
them. Between highest officers and privates there exists 
an understanding, a sympathy, and a genuine admiration, 
which are as rare as they are binding. 

If dress parade is held, 'tis at 4 :30 on the parade 
ground, bands playing, but it is generally Recall that is 
sounded and the troops march to their quarters and 
stand in double rows before them. At 4:45 sounds first 
call Retreat. Then do the bugles call the colors. Traffic 
stops in the ways, orderlies dismount and stand beside 
their horses, absolute silence falls over the many thousands 
facing the flag at salute. 'Tis a solemn moment. The 
heart swells as eyes lift to that fair flag, slowly responding 
to the calling bugles, lowered by its own people, never 
by aliens since the stars first shone in its sky, and rever- 
ently caught breast high by waiting hands, for the colors 
must never touch the ground. And as it descends, every- 
where the bands greet "The Star-Spangled Banner" by 
name. With its careful folding and housing, official 
day is done. 

Then the boys rush in to their mess halls for a third 
hearty meal and all are free for the evening and for 
amusements so many and varied that they would fill a 
book. 

A long hard day it seems and yet, in peace times, the 
Old Hudson Bay Company's at its post hard by, began 
earlier, ended later. Its Commandant was Dr. McLaughlin 
when Captain Wilkes visited there in 1841. A bell at 
early dawn rang all hands, breakfastless, to work. They 
were recalled for their first meat at eight o'clock. At 
nine they were back at work. Dinner at one; at two 
they returned to labor till six, when they "called it a 
half day and went fishing," or rather, supped. 

At nine o'clock, just the start of the evening at home, 
Jack says, bugles sound Tattoo and lights go out in bar- 



CAMP LEWIS 39 

racks. No need to be in quarters but darkness and 
silence fall there. At a quarter of eleven, "Call to 
Quarters" and here and there belated soldiers are rushing 
toward barracks, for at eleven Taps must find everyone 
in his narrow bed in the two long rows of the dormitory. 
Men have not been long in camp before they are accus- 
tomed to sleep early, so they are likely already dreaming 
of home and you when Taps says goodnight: 

"Go to sleep, peaceful sleep, 

May a soldiei^ m- sailor God keep, 

On the la7id or on the deep." 

And they sleep. The moon looks in to see that all 
is well, or the rain patters upon the roof which shelters 
your Jack and mine. Safe they are, at least for today, 
and today is done Taps. 



40 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE BASE HOSPITAL — TEAM WORK OF NOTED INDIVIDUALISTS 
— DIVISION SURGEON FIELD — LIEUT.-COL. NORTHINGTON — 
MENINGITIS, PNEUMONIA AND LIEUT. ROCKEY — X-RAY 
AND CAPT. DIEMER — ORTHOPEDY AND MAJ. RICH — SAR- 
GENTICH AND SERBIAN — TUBERCULOSIS AND THE MAT- 
SON'S — MAJ. WHITACRE, SURGERY AND THE ROCKEY'S. 

Before ever the Ninety-First took the field, a critical 
engagement was fought within the cantonment. No bands 
and banners preceded the charge, no buglers sounded 
the onslaught. Pretentious historians may ignore this 
pioneer skirmish and the two officers commanding the 
sorties, Lieut. Col. Peter Field and Maj. Northington, pro- 
moted to same rank as result of the campaign. 

Upon the Division Surgeon devolves responsibility 
for the bodily health of all the thousands of our family 
of the cantonment, and of camp sanitation. Well named 
is he, for he holds Prevention before Intervention: and 
Peter, the rock, set in a wall of defense against Contagion 
from without, takes the Field in a ruthless offensive should 
it break into camp. The only inappropriate part of his 
signature is lieutenant-colonel, since tenant is holder in 
lieu of a superior, and the Ninety-First's has none. Not in 
any camp, anywhere, anytime has the record been equaled, 
though Camp Lewis has repeatedly broken its own. For 
instance, official report for week ending February 15, 
1918, with 30,650 men encamped: "There have been no 
deaths during the last two weeks. No new cases of 
cerebro-Spinal meningitis have developed during the week. 
Mumps and scarlet fever cases are fewer in number than 
reported during the preceding week. Some cases of 



CAMP LEWIS 41 

measles have been admitted to the hospital which were 
undoubtedly infected outside of the camp. The latest re- 
port from the surgeon general's ofRce shows Camp Lewis 
below the average of all camps for admission of disease 
to the hospital and the non-effective rate." 

"F. R. Mount, 
Major, M. R. C. Division Sanitary Inspector. 

R. C. Field, 
Lieut.-Col. Medical Corps, U. S. A. 

"Division Surgeon." 

In passing, Major, following the Division Sanitary 
Inspector's name, is a recent appraisal, he was Lieutenant 
when he came, emphasizing opportunity for men to Mount 
rapidly in this great new army. 

Camp Lewis stands First in all history of encamped 
men to the number of 50,000, in health rating. Women- 
kin, is not that reassuring? Beginning at the beginning 
was not soon enough for these men ; they were on the 
ground when ground was all there was. Col. Field admits 
that he was a perfect nuisance to everybody. He was 
quite willing anyone should have second chance, but the 
hospital simply had to be built first. He posted special 
sentries, so to speak, in tents beside the railway station, 
where day or night, every man who arrived was challenged : 
"Contagion, stand and be recognized." Capt. Cooley and 
Lieut. Hilgenberg assert that the intensive training they 
underwent for this work should have been at the Tower 
of Babel instead of at Fort Harrison. Lieut. Reidy in the 
assigning tent, quite a linguist, eased things. Nine 
nationalities, including a Chinese and a Greek, were under 
examination at once. If alien germs appeared, into quar- 
antine went the man, if ill, to the hospital, so disease never 
gained the foothold it did in some camps. Every "rookie" 
was later "shot" for typhoid, and vaccinated. His second 
physical examination was before a board of experts and 
if there was anything in his anatomy, inside or out, which 
they did not investigate, it was the meditations of his 
heart — and they were only too apparent. 



42 THE NINETY-FIRST 

The second efficiency cause was Col. Field's checking 
system. At Divisional Headquarters hang maps stuck 
with pins, vari-colored heads for various diseases. As 
the battle rages these pins are moved daily. The maps 
resemble those of a commanding general at the front, and 
they are. The Colonel is fighting Contagion, Disease and 
Death, not only in the Division but, in a sense, in the 
eight great contributing states, California, Oregon, Wash- 
ington, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada and Utah, an 
empire larger than all the battling powers in Europe. 
He works with the Health Department of nearby cities. 
For instance. Colonel Magruder informed Tacoma's health 
officer that the city's water system would be investigated, 
and the latter recommended a second chlorine gas ma- 
chine. How much happier that country where chlorine 
gas is ordered to protect, not to destroy. 

There are eighteen infirmaries scattered throughout 
the cantonment, with staffs of physicians, dentists, and 
enlisted men each with its dispensary. So, mothers, you 
need not fear Son is ill without care. Sick men are of no 
use to anybody. The government, as a plain matter of 
business, must have efficient soldiers, so every morning 
at seven the bugles sound Sick Call — 

Come all ye sick, come all ye lame, 

Come all ye lazy and blind, 

Come on dow7i to the hospital, 

And they ivill give you quinine, quinine, quinine. 

The "regs" say that's what the bugle calls, but quinine is 
clean out of style now. Instead of being lined up and given 
quinine from one end to the other, for every ailment from 
"a to zed except housemaid's knee," he is ordered to his regi- 
mental infirmary, under care of a corporal and cured in 
short order unless it is a case of contagion, surgery, men- 
tality, or serfous disease requiring specialists and trained 
nurses — there are only men at infirmaries, in which case 
an ambulance takes him to the base hospital, and if the 
ailment is contagious, in an ambulance devoted to that 



CAMP LEWIS 43 

especially, a new and sensible idea. Likeliest, it is "Kaiser 
measles," in which event, I grieve to say. Son will be 
heartlessly cussed with a unanimity of company senti- 
ment which, otherwise directed would prove most desirable 
esprit de corps. Excuse French which we all are learn- 
ing or relearning. No, that is not polite for corpse — me, 
I never thought French any politer than English, anyway. 
You know German measles only make a man ugly. You 
are well out of nursing His Hatefulness, for he won't be 
sick enough to be saintly. So Son goes to the base hospi- 




Courtesy of Commercial Bindery & Printing Co., Tacoma 

SCREENED IN ISOLATION WARD 

tal, enters one of four isolation wards under charge of 
Lieut. Smeal, to lounge on flowery beds of ease out in 
the screened porch — "What, turned out of doors!".. Yes, 
quite the latest thing in scarlet fever, measles, pneumonia, 
etc., "He is fed up on good eats, hocks drill while his 
whole company is quarantined in barracks for two or 
three weeks on the very eve of a dance with some nice 
girls chap'd from Tacoma. This very date the 364th In- 
fantry recalled invites to a dance for the fourth time, 
because of Quarantine for Measley Kaisers. "It's a 
darned shame, and another guy'll break out." — I assure 
you this language is not my own, which is invariably 
gentle and refined — "and nix for our vaudeville. No such 
'uck as company skipping drill, drills by itself;" and if 



44 THE NINETY-FIRST 

She comes out, she must stand ten feet away, in wind 
and mud, while conversation ebbs and flows with the 
advance and retreat of the sentry, "that infernal joker 
Jones" who exacts heavy toll of angel food which you 
may receive only on the fly over the prescribed ten feet. 
He says angel food should be delivered by wing, and that 
kind was never baked 

"For you, and not for me. 

For me the angels singaling — aling 

They've got the goods for me." 

That is from a rather sacreligious trench song. Still, 
as Jones says, angels lay themselves open to such remarks 
with their wings and things. But you see, yourself, now 
don't you, mother of Son, that sympathy for him could 
hardly be expected under the circumstances? However, 
sympathy is real and ready in any trouble or pain. 

The head of the Base Hospital is Lt. Col. Eugene North- 
ington, head in every sense. Following three years as 
assistant at Letterman Hospital, San Francisco, he came 
to Camp Lewis in June, 1917, as sanitary inspector, to 
forestall disease among workmen numbering 10,000. For 
that, Maj. Northington received his training in the Oc- 
cupation of Havanna, in 1899. He was appointed by the 
Government to command an institution yet to be, and 
ordered to build it. No wonder that he feels toward the 
Base Hospital as a father, rather than a Commander, 
loving it as a child grown into distinguished manhood, 
for he put his heart into the body of it and infused his 
spirit into its development. 

Maj. Stone turned over the whole Base Hospital busi- 
ness to Maj. Northington, who began building it August 
20. In eighteen days it was ready for 405 patients; by 
April it accommodated 2200 and before the Division left 
Camp Lewis, double that number. For months, less than 
forty doctors treated 1400 patients at a time. So over- 
worked were they that enlisted men were pressed into 
the service. Wednesday and Saturday afternoons and 
all day Sunday were camp holidays for all but medics. 



CAMP LEWIS 45 

The sign of the army medical corps is the Caduceus 
or wand of authority borne by Mercury, messenger and 
interpreter of the gods, its staff, force, entwined by two 
serpents, wisdom and subtlety — search and research — 
surmounted by wings, alertness and activity. The Great 
Physician Himself authorized this Caduceus, ''Be ye wise 
as serpents and harmless as doves," and used its staff to 
drive money-changers from the temple. The Hospitalers 
are upon His personal Staff, having themselves driven forth 
the money changers from the temple, "which temple ye 
are." 

Nothing could be more different than this hospital and 
that erected 875 years ago for the purpose, both, of 
sheltering Pilgrims, pilgrims to the City of Jerusalem and 
to this City to Enforce Peace, but both institutions con- 
ducted by Hospitalers, Knights of St. John, who, you 
remember, was called by the Great Physician, the Be- 
loved, because he loved much. These men are not averag- 
ing twelve and fourteen hours a day for a bare living, 
but for a full one; love for country, for the work, for 
men. These Hospitalers now number 98, two or three 
missing from the picture, and the roster is an honor roll 
in that it bears many of the leading medics of the North- 
west. There are more than twice as many in the hospi- 
tal, not counting those in the infirmaries, as are left 
to the whole population of Tacoma, which is many more 
than twice that of Camp Lewis. So Home folks, you see 
the army has about six times as many doctors as civilians 
have, yet Dr. E. C. Wheeler, chairman of the Medical Sec- 
tion of the State Council of Defense, just received this 
telegram from the National Council of Defense at Wash- 
ington, D. C. : 

"An urgent need exists for several thousand ad- 
ditional medical officers in the army and navy, some 
for immediate service, some for training and others 
to be held in reserve. Urge your state and county 
committees to speed up enrollment as effectively 
as possible." 



46 THE NINETY-FIRST 

The Japanese discovered during their war with Russia 
that a plenitude of surgeons gave confidence to the soldier 
as well as providing instant attention to disease or wounds, 
with incalculable life-saving. We have benefitted by their 
experiences and the bitterness of our own unpreparedness 
and unorganization in this respect during our Spanish- 
American war. Add to all this, that our soldiers live 
such regular and out-of-door lives under perfect sanitary 
conditions that they are far less liable to disease than 
we careless Stay-at-Homes, and you readily see the folly 
of worry. 

But brilliant individualists cannot accomplish what 
has been done at Camp Lewis. It must be teamwork, a 
type of labor, generally, as un-American as I. W. W.'s. 
As in football, the game is won by the side which is one, 
not eleven, and the successful coach is he who reduces his 
number to that common denominator, making every 
player one-eleventh of one. Col. Field is that coach for 
the Division, and Col. Northington for Base Hospital, and 
the score for the first five months of Camp Lewis stood 
52 to 50,000! 

Pneumonia! Not a moment is lost rushing him to 
a ward where wonderful cures are made and experts 
grow more expert every day, for they treat such numbers. 
Comparison, as Col. Field points out, is great opportunity, 
especially in Pneumonia and Meningitis, the Compensation 
in self-growth for the sacrifice which physicians and sur- 
geons of the rank of these make in foregoing lucrative 
practices to work like slaves for paltry salaries. 

Yellow fever and typhoid have been annihilated, as 
pneumonia and meningitis, disease Huns of today, will be. 
Pneumonia is a race with death, every second counts, so a 
man is rushed to the hospital where immediately his sputum, 
urine, and blood from his arm are submitted to a laboratory 
expert that cultures can be made, for a serum which con- 
quers one of the four forms of pneumonia has no effect upon 
the others, and the phase can only be known by inoculating 
young rabbits bred for the purpose. Rabbits are mercifully 
especially susceptible to pneumonia. White mice develop 
it even more quickly but are not now obtainable as the 



CAMP LEWIS 47 

fad for them as pets has passed — strange connection be- 
tween fashion and death! Six hours is the record of test3 
thus far, but they hope soon to inject a serum obtained 
from the patient himself into his arm. The serum now 
used is drawn from horses that have been inoculated with 
pneumonia germs which, introduced into their blood, im- 
mediately set upon the destroyers. The survivors are used 
as vaccine. The weakest pneumonia form demands twenty- 
five percent of human life; the strongest, lung germs, 
fifty-six per cent. Lieut. Rockey has recently obtained won- 
derfully satisfactory results in draining pus after pneu- 
monia by an original device for connecting an ordinary 
water-pipe running from the ceiling down the wall behind 
each bed, with a small rubber tube which, kept inserted in 
the incision day and night, discharges the pus into a bottle 
containing disinfectant standing beneath the bed. Thus 
a uniform, constant suction, painless, is produced and is 
regulated at the faucet of the ordinary water pipe in a 
sink to which all are connected. A glass tube partly 
water filled, indicates the force, which is eighteen inches, 
producing a partial vacuum. Men of the Ninety-first 
unfortunate enough to be attacked by pneumonia, which 
would happen anywhere, are fortunate in benefiting by 
advance science. 

Base Hospital has done wonders in pneumonia and 
in meningitis. A young lieutenant taken there, paralyzed 
by its fearful suffering, is not only alive, but able to return 
to his company. Capt. C. S. Wilson handles these two 
diseases, largely, and performs autopsies which will fur- 
nish from the dead advice to the living. 

One expert, working entirely gratis, and not even 

listed with the staff, is called upon to assist them all, 

Dr. Climate. If the pneumonia patients on those screened 

porches had been attacked in the East during this last 

Winter, they would literally have frozen out of doors, 

yet it is the open they must have. Most of the "epidemics" 

are in porch wards. 

********** 

And don't you think for one minute that because the 
nearly two hundred buildings are unpainted, that hospital 



48 THE NINETY-FIRST 

is anything but the last word in plan and equipment. 
Not the most noted in New York City is superior, because 
it has the latest and best of everything at any price, down 
to the eminent personnel. 

The wards have concrete bases and ridgepole ventila- 
tion without drafts. Windows close together admit light, 
sun, and beautiful views of its sixty acres at the canton- 
ment's edge. Beds and bedding are of the best, and the 
hospital's own steam laundry furnishes clean linen every 
day. Every unit has an ofRce with man in charge, a 
ward, a two-man room, diet kitchen, with lavatories, 
shower baths, bathroom, and a linen closet which would 
do your heart good, mother; towels are even pretty, with 
that comforting Caduceus woven into the blue border. 
Everything is immaculate. Wards are heated with hot 
water brought underground from the hospital power 
house, 180 degrees water. Were you as warm this Winter, 
Home Folks? Surely not back East, where schools closed 
and elevators stopped, and well-to-do's had only a kitchen 
fire, for lack of coal. 

All buildings are connected by broad, railed, roofed, 
lighted corridors, which can be traversed by invalid chairs 
or stretchers borne by husky orderlies, enlisted men, for 
more than tivo miles, without leaving them, all level with 
ward doors. Attaches of the regimental infirmaries and 
this base wear the Caduceus, and privates a maroon and 
white cord around their service hats. They do the lifting, 
the ordinary work, go to the diet kitchen for patients' 
meals, serve them, etc. Convalescents who are able help, 
too. They cannot be said to resemble assistant angels of 
mercy, attired in Turkish toweling bath robes over pajamas 
of outing flannel, hoods ditto, and bedroom slippers. Some, 
with faces nearly covered with dressings like masks, 
resemble a curious order of Monks. 

When Son arrives, his underwear is sent to the laun- 
dry, his uniform to the disinfecting building, and he 
receives a ticket. When discharged, all are returned, 
sanitary, to him. 

The hospital has its own telephone exchange, every 
building connected. It has a private telegraph and postoffice, 



CAMP LEWIS 49 

its own post exchange where Son can buy most things, be 
shaved, play bilHards, have clothes repaired, etc. ; its own 
Y, M. C. A. where convalescents may sit about in their robes, 
playing games, writing, playing piano or phonograph, 
smoke, or take down one of the 500 volumes from the 
Camp Library, changed often. There are gift pictures 
on the walls. One shows you. Mother, seated at a table 
with Son's photo against a pot of flowers. You are read- 
ing the very letter he wrote you here yesterday ; see the 
red triangle on the paper? It's on all the Y. M. stationery 
given those well enough to write, or carried to the bed- 
sides and there written to order by his "private secretary" 
— well, he is a private and he is a Y. M. secretary. This 
room tides Son over the hardest confinement, that of con- 
valescence. While I think of it, the Base Hospital has 
just established another new feature, a Convalescent Camp 
for the guests who hitherto taxed their hospitality, being 
too well to stay and too weak to go back to the arduous 
life of the barrack, and who sang with feeling '7 doii't 
want to get well, I'm in love with a beautiful nurse." 

To return to the Y. M. hall, there's always some one 
to talk to, foolery, music. He is not preached at, he need 
not even read the mottoes, but it is likely they will hang, 
unseen, on the walls of his dug-out in France. Perhaps 
it was Son who copied them for me. They are a gift from 
scliool children in Sumner, nicely printed upon cardboard. 
No man is free who is not master of himself. — Eva Scott. 
Do little things now; so shall big things come to thee by 
and by, asking to be done. — Bertha Webb. Impatient people 
ivater their miseries and hoe up their comforts. — Ruth 
Purvis. // yon can't do anything else to help along, just 
smile. — Eleanor Kirk. Happiness is a matter of habit: 
contract it. — Margaret Renaud. There were others, but the 
very best, printed by Lwearri Lorenso, you will find just 
after Gen. Greene's picture, for it must have been written 
with him in mind. Thank heaven there is always some- 
thing funny, and this, recalling the Kaiser, is IT : There is 
7wthing so kingly as kindness, and nothing so royal as 
truth. -Neva Parker never thought of ridicule when she 

§ 5 



50 THE NINETY-FIRST 

printed, Count that day lost in which you have not 
laughed. The soldiers enjoy the joke books, too, which 
school children made. 

Evenings, there is music among themselves or visiting 
talent, even boxing bouts. There's a young colored boy 
who used to travel one of the circuits who is in demand at 
smokers all over the cantonment. "He is sure the funniest 
thing that ever happened. He told this one night: Bill 
saluted me and the Corp. said he shouldn't of. Bill says 
the Sergeant told him to salute all standards and colors." 

Then in the hospital tailor shop there's a mild-looking 
fire-eater, a very devil of a fellow though, when, dressed 
in his Mephistopholies old suit, he spits flames and eats red- 
hot coals, and all that, as, in fact, I have seen the Eskimos 
do 'way up on Bering Sea. This soldier, E. E. Barnes, 
covered much of the world when tpr twelve years he 
traveled, "eating fourteen kinds of fire." Now he distracts 
the weary hours of his comrades' pain with his "art." 
Truly we have given of many things for this war, given 
and received, so that all are richer, another compensation. 

Of necessity. Doctors' lectures and everything else was 
held in the Y. M. C. A. hall until April, when officers' and 
nurses' quarters were built, the hospital's capacity doubled, 
and a pleasant assembly hall with a fireplace, such as every 
other unit on the cantonment had long enjoyed, was fin- 
ished and if the doctors ever do have a minute, it will 
probably be spent there. 

As the airplane is the eye of the army, the X-Ray is 
the eye of the hospital, peering into a man's very heart. 
There is no better equipped X-Ray department on earth 
than Camp Lewis', and Capt. F. E. Diemer is bright enough 
to be distinguished in it, by turning strong light into at 
least two hitherto dark corners. He has contrived, though 
he insists it is a composite idea, what will prove a moving 
picture of a stomach — this is neither a joke nor a sea 
story — a stomach showing action and reaction, caught in 
the very act of digestion or indigestion. One of the men 
in the developing room is a mechanician. Obtaining a 



CAMP LEWIS 51 

three days' furlough he went home and made this model, 
which is held up till payday for attaching. It is a box 
in three sections, fastened to the wall at standing height, 
with two electric wires attached. In the first compart- 
ment are many photographic plates, bits of wood at pres- 
ent; in the middle part, the plate to be pictured. You 
pull a slide, this plate opens into the third section, and 
another from the first automatically takes its place. The 
man, stripped to the waist, stands with his stomach before 
the middle plate and the X-Ray machine behind his back. 
Barium prevents the ray from "taking" beyond the 
stomach under discussion, as barium is impervious to the 
ray. A picture can be made a second. Think how val- 
uable to science such a series thrown upon a screen would 
be, but it makes a layman feel "sort of sick at the stomach." 

Another bit of original work done in the X-Ray depart- 
ment is in computations of the heart area and weight, 
with and without blood, in normal and in abnormal hearts. 
Again that eager word Comparison, no richer place for it 
in all the world than right here, says Capt. Diemer. They 
have thousands of large negatives in which to compare all 
this, and they photograph many dead hearts, too, which 
have ceased from troubling. Upon these plates they pencil 
a line around the organ and compute its area with the 
same little instrument which a surveyor uses to brinj? 
his acres down to scale. L. A. Wadsworth, formerly of 
Physics in the University of California, is working with 
Capt. Diemer along this line. 

Then there's W. J. Slater, born and bred in Tacoma, a 
star among Stadium High's 300 on the service flag. Slater 
enlisted from the U. of W. He works the Ultra-Violet ray 
machine with a devotee's joy. All sun-rays are good doc- 
tors, but the U. V. is a specialist in skin diseases, persistent 
sores, foreign growths, even portwine birthmarks con- 
sidered ineradicable, and in humbling proud flesh. The 
U. V. cured a Lieutenant, in only a score of treatments, 
of tropical ulcer on his leg, the result of Oriental service, 
and which many doctors had not helped. The Ultra 
Violet ray lies beyond the seen violet of the rainbow; un- 



52 THE NINETY-FIRST 

seen powers are strongest. Within a hemisphere of alumi- 
num is a quartz tube filled with mercury which vaporizes 
when the ray passes through the quartz — glass would 
hold it — when the electric current is turned on. This 
tube shines like the sun and its light has exactly the 
effect of sun at great altitudes, only more applicable, so 
that Son is treated by a four-hundred-dollar actinic ray, 
instead of living at Alpine heights for costly exposures, 
or suff'ering along with stubborn ills. Under the hemi- 
sphere comes up another half to cover the intense light 
except where allowed to strike the aff'ected part. A 
soldier, eye and ear protected with cotton, was sitting be- 
fore it, he takes it but three minutes at first, increasing 
generally to nine, never more than fifteen, twice or thrice 
a week, with no sensation whatever at the time. Hours 
after there is a burning, and the skin may peel, there are 
three of these rare machines at Base Hospital, one with 
an attachment for treatment of small areas. They have 
accomplished wonders already, and the field of their cures 
extends daily. 

In four months the X-ray department took 3,500 plates, 
everyone labeled, name, date, particulars, recorded, then 
stored for reference in pension applications, etc. From 
them hundreds of lantern slides are made to illustrate 
doctors' lectures, which may be attended by outsiders, and 
are extremely interesting. There are unlimited opportuni- 
ties for education and advance at Camp Lewis. 

As Capt. Diemer showed the large plates, he chuckled 
over one, nothing unusual with this all-alive expert. "No, 
I'll not tell you the joke. Yes, it's too good to keep, and 
on three perfectly good doctors, too. See the spot on top 
this stomach? The man had once been stabbed thereabouts, 
was suffering again, and a consultation was held. They 
sent him to be X-rayed to settle the matter. This spot 
decided them that the knife had pierced the liver. Now 
that spot happens to be a picture of the gas bubble that, 
you know, floats on top of everybody's stomach" — never 
heard of it, but didn't say so, having already admitted as 
much ignorance as seemed advisable. Of course Capt. 



CAMP LEWIS 53 

Diemer didn't enlighten the soldier, but showed him other 
plates with similar floating islands when the man ex- 
claimed, "Well, now, what do you know about that? All 
these guys stabbed exactly where I was; ain't it funny?" 
It was, too funny to keep to himself and three learned 
doctors, or even with me added, in a world as solemn as 
this one's growing. 

The X-ray has taken hundreds of dental plates — no 
pun. The glass is placed in the mouth. This shows a 
double impaction of the molars — why don't you know 
what that means? (I didn't either) two teeth, instead of 
doing their part of the everyday grind had literally "laid 
down on the job," and grown together under the gum, top 
to top. The soldier suffered with severe headaches, diag- 
nosis saw no reason. This picture was taken and the 
question answered in the negative, the slackers were rooted 
out. Many hidden anatomical mysteries these speaking 
likenesses reveal. The X-ray is the airplane of the medi- 
cal army, and like everything else at Camp Lewis, is not 
only in the superlative degree, but adds to the firsts. 



The Base Hospital staff" lacks one widely known, Dr. 
Everlasting Sawbones. Before operations are resorted 
to, Orthopedy is — No, nothing to do with handwriting, nor, 
necessarily with feet. Why don't you look it up yourself 
in the dictionary? That's what I did. 

"But it says just straight and child, and the Base isn't 
a child's hospital." 

Well, all soldiers have, so to speak, descended from 
children, haven't they? Sometimes 500 a day visit the 
Orthopedic ward for corrections of bone and joint defects, 
ankle and foot deformities, strained spines, and all that 
which manipulation often cures ; if not, surgery. 

Dr. E. A. Rich of Tacoma was a pioneer in treating 
these born-in troubles with "that divine tool" the hand, 
and its works, succeeding even with children who had 
never walked. He was Rich in helpfulness before he en- 
listed his skill as a Lieutenant at Camp Lewis hospital. 



54 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Soon, as Capt. Rich, he had charge of two wards with 
80 regular patients. Such men as Lt. Col. Starr, of the 
Imperial Canadian service, himself an orthopedic special- 
ist, waxed enthusiastic over his originality, scope, success. 
So now Camp Lewis has lost him, first, the War Depart- 
ment appointed him supervisor of orthopedics over the 
Southern and Western departments of the army, every- 
thing West of the Mississippi and South, sixteen camps and 
forts. His one regret was not going with the 91st Division, 
his first, to France. And now Major Rich has gone to 
Washington to assist in the office of the Surgeon-General 
of the Army in the War Department. 

Mother, are you not thankful Son is rid of that thorn in 
the flesh which has worried him since boyhood? He has been 
treated by an authority, the unsuspected, perhaps, discov- 
ered, and costly cure effected ivithout cost. There are many 
compensations for losses in this war. One will be the 
physical uplift of our entire man-force which means the 
next and into the third and fourth generation. Dr. Rich was 
formerly Tacoma Health Officer. So was Doctor, now 
Captain Sargentich. When the war broke out, he hastened 
to Serbia, his native country, though Tacoma had been his 
home many years. He served supermanfully combatting 
typhus in an unequipped hospital, untrained old men for 
nurses, three or four assisting doctors, 600 and 700 pa- 
tients, the dead often unburied because the countryside 
had not enough men strong enough to dig graves. Only 
in that great Account Book will it ever be set down, 
every horror itemized. Sufficient that, in a country of 
heroes, Sargentich was accounted a hero. He was in 
that terrible Serbian Retreat, constantly inspiring the 
suff'ering; prescient was the mother who named him 
Spiro. Severely wounded, he returned to this coun- 
try and gave many Red Cross talks while crossing the 
States. The very night our entrance into the war was 
declared, he was speaking at the Tacoma Hotel. It was 
an awed and strained audience with "extras" in their 
hands, that hung upon his simple, forceful words. Sar- 
gentich enlisted at once and later Camp Lewis and the 



CAMP LEWIS 55 

91st gained another great man. This inadequate tribute 
to Sargentich gains from the quiet words of a fellow Ser- 
bian at this very hospital. I was sitting at the bedside 
of Bosko Samarazich who fought through the first years 
of the war, was with the heroic Serbian army in Mace- 
donia, had been wounded five times. I saw where the 
shrapnel had torn his head, the finger from which a rifle 
had taken half, but the worst was the hole in his leg 
where the dum-dum had exploded. Oh yes, he would be 
quite fit if the Division went over. He had come to 
Montana to visit a brother while recovering. He could 
have been exempted. Had he not done his share? Did he 
really wish to go back? His face wore the detached look 
one notes upon the faces of all who have descended into 
that Hell. His eyes were steely but he tonelessly replied, 
"I must return. My brothers were killed fighting in the 
Serb army so only I remain to remember my two sisters, 
who with their friends in our village were — finally — locked 
into the church and burned to death. I am fast recover- 
ing, I cannot be discharged". 

I asked this man if he knew anything of Sargentich, 
his eyes glowed. "He dressed my wounds on the retreat. 
I traveled the whole two hundred miles on crutches," 
this in quite a casual tone. No wonder the soldier in 
the next bed stopped grunting. 



Some men seem to possess an almost uncanny power 
of diagnosis, the day is past for treating an ailment 
for anything it resembles, until, the patient not first 
succumbing, the right is blundered upon. 

When the Department asked the services of Dr. Sippy 
of Rush, Chicago, considered leading authority upon stom- 
ache and intestinal disorders, he said he was too old for 
army work, but he would spare his first assistant, another 
case of ''just as good" substitution. No one could accuse 
him of being too old, for he looks boyish even for his 
thirty-one years, so it is Lieut W. H. Stutsman — be it 
said in passing that a doctor cannot be appointed captain 



56 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



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MEDICAL CORPS OF ■; 



before 35, though he may be promoted to next rank be- 
fore. 

Another young man, Capt. Kenneth Staniford, is 
to be found at the head of the laboratory service, another 
kind of diagnosing and treating in one. As Lieutenant, 
he was here at the first and began laboratory work with 
two helpers under a tree. Work increased till he begged 
the mustering office to secure names of drafted pharmac- 
ists, chemists, anybody who could help. His force grew 
to ten, fifty more are needed, for work came very near 
being a "continuous performance" averaging fourteen 
hours a day for five months without a solitary day off. 
And all the doctors work the same. Capt. Terry admits 
that he is "hopeful" over the results of experiment in his 
laboratory for materially reducing the time of tubercul- 



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CAMP LEWIS 






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57 



\SE HOSPITAL 



osis development. No wonder when an assistant asked 
for a furlough to do some specializing in the Rockefeller 
Institute, Col. Northington told Capt. Staniford that the 
man could do it just as well in his laboratory. 



Mother, are you not, again, fortunate in having 
Son's incipient tuberculosis discovered, for physicians 
agree that it is most easily and permanently cured of 
disease, if early detected, and Son was paying no heed. At 
Camp Lewis he is brought before a board of twenty 
specialists. If signs of *'T. B." are found, a guinea pig, 
beneficently susceptible to it, is inoculated. The president 
of the T. B. examining board. Dr. Ray Matson is twin 
brother to a twin expert, so alike are they, that the picture 
of the one in the group is the portrait of the other who 



58 THE NINETY-FIRST 

will follow, for the twins have "taken turns" ever since 
graduation. In Portland, the doctors Matson are medical 
directors of a sanatorium, in charge of a free tuberculosis 
dispensary, and associate professors of medicine at the 
University of Oregon. All that is a trifle misleading, 
should be, throughout, singular, — and is — , for, while Dr. 
Ray is one of all that, Dr. Ralph is working in some clinic 
abroad for a year; and when Dr. Ralph returns, Dr. Ray 
takes his year off. So alike in person, voice, skill and 
ideas are they, that the change of occupant is not noticed. 
In this cut-and-dried old world, isn't that — whifi'y? Dr. 
Ray was doing his turn in Austria when war broke out, 
leaving three months after, so it was the other's first 
chance with the British Expeditionary Forces in France, 
doing research work for best treatment of wounds, at 
Hospital 13, and Huns for enemies ! Dr. Ralph was hardly 
seated before Ray was at Vancouver Barracks in August, 
and October 2 found him at Camp Lewis. This T. B. 
board has examined 40,000 men within the last six months. 
Humanly speaking they are responsible for their deduc- 
tions. If Son is retained he will be cured. It is not hope- 
less if he is discharged, may mean it would take too long 
to cure, for every minute counts and every' soldier must 
be one hundred per cent efi'ective. Is not this allied at- 
tack against the great White Plague a war compensation? 
'Twill do more to relegate it to the oblivion of the Black 
Death than a century of desultory, spasmodic effort. 

A soldier must see and hear perfectly. Every vital 
organ is worthy a man's life study. The poor unresting 
heart in Capt. Kerr's field. He and other specialists 
aided by X-Rays, have examined 500 beating hearts at 
Camp Lewis and rejected half from war service. Capt. E. 
C. Wheeler could probably operate upon tonsils in the 
dark, he removes an average of 150 a week. Maj. Roberts 
is head of the eye, ear, nose and throat department. 

Late years have shown that teeth play a very import- 
ant part in health. Many a soldier has been ordered to 
the chair and approached it with all the dread which he 



CAMP LEWIS 59 

would feel toward the electric chair, which indeed, it is, 
with the latest electrical dental appliances. Uncle Sam 
only draws the line at gold fillings and gas exemption from 
extraction pains, otherwise, without money and without 
price one may have his teeth put in perfect condition. 
Wish I had an Uncle Sam. I have heard only two com- 
plaints about the hospital : one corporal who used to take 
men there in the beginning said he had seen a whole 
line receive white pills from the same bottle; and another 
said he thought most of the dentists were first class, and 
kind, but that one of them removed an old filling "with 
a tack hammer and chisel, and I took the next tooth to a 
dentist in Tacoma who seemed to guess I was part human." 
The dental outfit goes with the Division too, packed small 
like the Field hospital, with all that suffices to bring a man 
trembling to the chair, who had rushed without a tremor. 
Over the Top. Another compensation: better digestions 
and smiles and more reason for them. A dental infirm- 
ary was opened in April. Twenty-six dental surgeons will 
occupy the structure, caring for all the men in camp, save 
those belonging to the depot brigade. Serious cases, re- 
quiring that the patient go to the hospital following opera- 
tion, will still be handled in the dental surgery ward at 
the base hospital. 

Major H. J. Whitacre is a physician whose rise has 
been rapid. As commander of the Tacoma Yacht Club 
I had seen him running his motor boat on the Fourth. 
Soon after he entered the service as Lieutenant at Camp 
Lewis, and now he is Major and head of the Surgery De- 
partment. Many soldiers have suffered from impedi- 
ments which operation would remove. These are sent to 
Base Hospital to surgeons who have no betters in famous 
hospitals nor private practice. Think what this would 
cost outside, loss of business, the hospital and that fear- 
ful surgeon's bill, which would rustle till the patient 
could sleep never a wink the pain-filled night. The Operat- 
ing rooms have the best of equipment and the surgeon 
most expert in that particular ailment, who performs so 



60 THE NINETY-FIRST 

many, that the experience of hundreds of ordinary sur- 
geons clings to his fingers, operates. The patient is taken 
to a cheerful ward, nursed by a white-clad woman, and 
he hears no rustling bills. 

Negroes are gone now, but the fun they made lingers. 
A convalescent says he grew fat over two darkies in his 
ward. The minute the doctor entered to dress wounds, 
one would begin to howl and his friend to respond to a 
curious litany: 

''Lawd, he's a-comin', have mercy on me." 

* * * "Do it, do it, have mercy." 

"Golly, he's most here, Ah need you. Gawd, bad!" * 

* * * "He sure do, Gaivd, he sure do." 
"He'll kill me, it'll hurt, Gawd." 

* * * "Dai's de truf. Gawd, you bet it'll hurt." 

Speaking of negroes reminds one of mules. Their bites 
are the most frequent cause of hospital attention. Mules 
don't like white men, which is tit for tat. "Persistent as a 
mule," recalls, beg pardon, Harold Broomell, a young 
Tacoma lawyer who started to enlist. Started is correct, 
for, although he otherwise passed high physically, his eyes 
precluded admission. He made one application after an- 
other in the army; then the navy. At last he went to talk 
with Major Northington, told him he surely could be 
useful there, and the Major wrote to Washington for per- 
mission to take him on. This received, the delighted ap- 
plicant entered service October 1. Inside a month it was 
First Sergt. Broomell. He has had charge of several 
wards, was head of Convalescent Camp No. 2, and has 
recently been the head of the Receiving Ward. More than 
that, his wish for overseas service is to be gratified after 
all, and he has been detailed to Hospital Unit No. 93, with 
a commission in sight. "They also serve who only stand 
and wait" — Milton. "They also serve who really stick and 
hustle" — Broomell. 

Service is various, though. Mountaineers have turned 
their club to army use by gathering and preparing wagon 



CAMP LEWIS 61 

loads of spagnum moss from bogs. It is said to be more 
absorbent than surgical cotton whose price is aviating. 

One cannot think of surgery at the cantonment with- 
out speaking of the doctors Rockey. Forfeiting a surgical 
practice of many thousands a year and a coast-length 
reputation, the father, Captain E. A. and son Captain 
Paul, are surgeons, and the other son, Lieutenant Eugene, 
physician. All three wear khaki for the duration of the 
war, and hope to go with the Ninety-first to France. 

Fine physicians are they all, yet "it is what they have 
achieved in team work." The Great Physician, in His 
Book on Healing, devotes an entire chapter to teamwork, 
originally addressed to a graduating class in Corinth: 

"Now there are diversities of gifts * * * 
of administrations * * * of operations, and 
the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every 
man to profit withal. * * * For the body is 
not one member, but many. * * * And the 
eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of 
thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need 
of you, nay much more those members of the body 
which seem to be more feeble are necessary * * 
* tempered together * * * ^j^^^ there should 
be no schism * * * whether one member suffer, 
all the members suffer with it. Gifts of healing, 
helps, government — Do all interpret?" 

So much space devoted to this subject, yet what would 
you have omitted? This book was written for the Ninety- 
first Division whose womenkind are surely "first-class 
privates," if nothing more, in this great war. One more 
reason is the admission of an officer, captured during the 
terrific offensive of April, that German orders commanded 
the picking oflF of all surgeons, as one was worth 500 
soldiers. 



62 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER V. 

RIGHT FORWARD, ARMY NURSES — COMMANDING OFFICER 
BOOTH — A woman's SERVICE — GIFT BEARERS — FIRST 
EASTER OF CAMP LEWIS — CHAPLAIN NEISEN AND MRS. 
THORNBERRY. 

Woman has always been the sick world's nurse; she 
always will be, even the United States government does 
not deny that, though being Missourian it had to be shown 
that Honors, beginning capital and ending s, is a per- 
fectly proper noun, plural, neuter, forgetting that means 
sexless. Now at Base Hospital the hundreds of orderlies, 
fine strapping fellows and helpful are all right enough 
but when Son is really ill he wants, and mother must 
know he has, the natural nurse, a woman, patient, sym»- 
pathetic, trained. Every one of the 200 nurses at Camp 
Lewis — there should be more, one to every ten patients 
and the hospital accommodates over 4000 — is a graduate 
of a first class hospital. In cities she is always in demand, 
highly paid, well housed and fed. She has sacrificed to 
enlist in this war and is eager for orders abroad. You 
will see the Caduceus below the sergeant's three-pointed 
chevron, but never a nurse with aught but the Caduceus, 
not even the Chief Nurse. I threw in the capitals on my 
own responsibility. Yet in England army nurses are 
commissioned, ranking to Major. Miss Booth, chief nurse 
remarked hopefully that there was a prospect of com- 
missioning nurses in this country, saying modestly that it 
would add greatly to their effectiveness. "You see no 
one can be 100 per cent efficient who has position without 
authority. The orderlies are helpful, generally pleasant 
and reasonable, but since we are not commissioned our 
requests, however urgent, are not orders. If the men dis- 
regard them, there is only appealing to an officer for en- 



CAMP LEWIS 63 

forcement. That is apt to cause delay and injury to the 
patient; but commissions are bound to come." 

Considering this and other drawbacks, it is clear that 
nurses enlist with the single thought of service, and con- 
sidering the Hun's partiality for hospitals and hospital 
ships as targets, and for women as worse, it seems their 
heroism might attract attention given only to women 
now in "Knit, Knit!" Heavens, aren't we knitting? Dur- 
ing this war, for the first time, women will be nurses 
upon hospital ships. 

I fear if Miss Booth happens upon this outburst — 
purely mine and highly controlled — she will think it fol- 
lows too closely upon her quiet "no" to the query about 
commissions. And her faith was justified, for in April 
the War Department recognized the injustice, especially 
as thousands of trained nurses are cried for. The present 
Army Nurse Corps was not organized till 1901, after 
the Spanish-American War had shown us many short- 
comings. There were only 100 nurses then ; when our 
troops went to the border, 373 ; today there are 8000, 
there should be 50,000. Even now the step is a 
short one in making the head nurse of a ward its chief 
instead of a male ward master, and the chief nurse of a 
military hospital has but one superior in it, the Com- 
manding Officer. Miss Jenny Booth is that chief, though 
as yet her slender shoulders bear only the Caduceus, her 
clear, direct gray eyes and quiet force are a leader's. A 
graduate of Roosevelt Hospital, New York City, Walter 
Reed, Washington, D. C. ; from the Presidio here in 
October, it is France she hopes for, yet it is good to 
be head of such nurses, young, very much alive, persoiial, 
so to speak, picked for unusual ability, though one might 
think, for their looks. How Sairy Gamp would hate those 
nurses. No wonder as one of the patients said, "Fellows 
have to be kicked out of the hospital. It's worth shedding 
an appendix to stay here awhile. It's all of home-y after 
the barracks. Yes, I have a fountain pen in my bag." 
'Twould have been odd if he hadn't, for there was quite 
everything that a boy's pocket would hold. These bags 



64 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



are the thought of Mrs. Greene who, with everything else 
she does, finds time for a visit to the hospital every now 
and then. Noticing the bedridden had no place for be- 
longings, she contrived a bag which draws up and with 
tapes to tie it to the head of the bed. The Red Cross 




MISS JENNY BOOTH, CHIEF OF NURSES, BASE HOSPITAL 



section which Mrs. Greene directs made 1000 of these 
cretonne bags and all pretty. The men never fail to re- 
mark that they are pretty : men are so much more human 
when ill. In the bags hang letters from the S. Y. in W. 
with a delicate odor of tobacco lingering about them, the 
great American jack-knife — but you know all the con- 
traptions, and your own picture, too, mother — mother dear. 



CAMP LEWIS 65 

Camp Lewis has beautiful wild greens everywhere, 
someone often brings in the cheery things. Wards are 
immaculate, only the thousands of radiators are black. 
There are miles and miles of pipe, two sets of boilers and 
everything. Surely you are impressed by my accuracy 
and truthfulness, which I am aware I imperil by stating 
that the entire Base Hospital plumbing plant cost but 
$160,000 and was installed, working, without repairs, 
within ninety days. You won't believe that, I don't my- 
self, but it's true. Why, what with forgetting first one, 
then another necessary tool, returning for it, placing 
radiators in wrong corners, laying off for a strike, piping 
and radiating my small house, and repairing when it 
leaked all over the new tinting, took longer than that, 
and cost much more than $160,000. We all know that. 
But I mention it only to show that even plumbers are 
human, and that when war sounds its mighty bugle, even 
rudimentary souls are quickened. 

After months of crowding, both physicians and nurses 
are suitably housed and have pleasant assembly rooms 
with fire places and pretty furniture. The nurse's hard- 
wood living room floor makes their dances possible. The 
pretty chintz curtains were all made and given by Mrs. 
Douglas, mother of Lieut. Douglas, those in the old quart- 
ers were another of Mrs. Greene's gifts, like those she 
made for the General's bungalow. Mrs. Rood of Seattle 
is another friend, has been from the first. It occurred to 
her that the nurses might occasionally like to mix a 
fruit punch instead of a mustard plaster, and presented 
them with two large punch bowls and a hundred glasses 
for their parties. She was one of many who helped to 
make the first cantonment Christmas a never-to-be-for- 
gotten day. The War Department, being mere men, never 
thought of trays, and you can't very well eat soup on a 
blanket. By going from shop to shop, she managed to 
buy five hundred trays, the Medical Department con- 
tributed sixty, and some Tacoma ladies fifty more with 
some pretty china dishes for the very sick of every ward, 

§ 6 



66 THE NINETY-FIRST 

because the government, not being sick abed, don't know 
that the cup of cold water, if the cup be china, becomes 
an elixir of life at times. All government dishes are 
granite ware. When you can't decide about wanting to 
come back to life, that granite ware settles it that you 
don't. 

Another Christmas present equally appreciated by 
both patients and nurses was Mrs. Greene's three dozen 
hot water bags. Pending the uncoiling of red tape, they 
had been heating bricks. The Los Angeles Graduate 
Nurses' Association knew how it was themselves; their 
gift to the war nurses was twelve dozen linen napkins. 

Miss Booth with the poet's face takes house-wifely 
pride in the linen room of the Administration Building. 
Cascade Red Cross, Great Falls, Montana, sends many 
gifts, but never one more appreciated than dozens of 
rag-woven mop cloths. A sensible gift was a large box 
of pads to support aching arms or knees, to give just the 
right cool lift to a weary head — all sizes and shapes, 
pretty and bright colored, stuffed with rags — feathers 
always "squash." To use what one has, in the size and 
shape it is — the Stadium High Schoolers, making bed 
slippers, found braid scarce and hemmed selvages. They 
gained much more than the price of braid. They sharp- 
ened their wits and discredited extravagance, a national 
sin. The irregular pads rank with the six down pillows 
a Tacoma woman sent, and the three hundred eider down 
bedroom slippers provided neither fun nor romance, not 
to mention the hemmed dust cloths. They are all of the 
comforting gifts called Such-es. Don't you remember Peter 
and Paul by the gate called Beautiful? It was to a lame 
man, Peter said it, "Silver and gold have I none, but 
such as I have, give I unto thee." As the war goes on 
we are discovering more and more Such-es. Some of us 
have also learned to say frankly, "I am poor," proving 
quite as good as Peter in that respect. The mother of one 
nurse mends for the nurses, that they may recreate, every 
Thursday; yet would not any sane person rather give a 
hundred dollars than mend? 



CAMP LEWIS 67 

The first and only nurse's aid of the Red Cross at 
Camp Lewis is Miss Ethel Allen, daughter of Col. S. E. 
Allen, Commander of the North Pacific District of Coast 
Artillery, stationed at Seattle. She wears a blue cap and 
veil, showing a red cross on a white field. Regular army 
nurses wear white, with navy blue cloth capes lined with 




MISS ETHEL ALLEN. FIRST RED CROSS NURSE'S AID 

red for out of doors. Miss Allen is taking practical train- 
ing, is under army orders and will go overseas. 

Another earnest Red Cross worker is Mrs. Rockey who 
came with her husband to the camp hoping she "might 
fit in somewhere". Noting that the diet kitchen needed 



68 THE NINETY-FIRST 

just her special training in domestic science, she asked 
to be used there and was joyfully accepted; result, another 
streak of good luck for the 91st. Mrs. Rockey is not only 
a capable woman, but an enthusiast, feeling her work as 
integral if not so glorious as a captain's, since a head 
with no stomach can't think. She refines what is menial 
into an art, working like a slave. Today, about 700 meals 
served from her kitchen. Tired? A little, but now the 
patients were served she would have a cup of tea and be 
quite fit — a man who was discharged because of diabetes, 
to ask if Mrs. Rockey would tell him how to diet at home; 
he thought she wouldn't mind. One would see in her noble 
face that he was quite safe. Anything to serve. 

Mrs. Rockey showed a huge pantry, its shelves yet 
bearing some of two and a quarter tons of homemade can- 
ned fruit sent by Stanwood women, who asked to have 
the jars returned that they might do it again. Next was 
a large bowl of floating island — waste no sympathy on 
"Son in the hospital and I not there to cook for him." 
If very ill, a woman government dietician is working out 
his special menu. If almost ready to return to barracks, 
he is being provided for in a huge kitchen, A barrel of 
potatoes is pared at once by machinery, casting forth a 
bucket every two minutes, which "K. P.'s" eye. Ninety-five 
gallons of milk are used every day at the Base, tested 
by the laboratories, no watered stock here. 

A few visitors to this wonderful cantonment call upon 
the sick. A small coterie of Tacoma friends adopted one 
of the surgical patients' wards; the envious are calling 
"mollycoddles! curtains! ash trays!" It was here lay the 
erstwhile strongest lightweight of the world with his 
medals to prove it, too; used to lie upon the sawdust ring, 
with two others, a board across their bodies, and alloAv 
a 7,000-pound automobile to go over. Saw it myself, never 
dreaming I should actually talk with such greatness, nor 
live "to shake the hand that shook the hand of Sullivan", 
or whatever the name of the big one who could lift 2,000 
pounds with one hand. I suddenly giggled and he gravely 
insisted. It wasn't that, but a recollection of a fight 



CAMP LEWIS 69 

brother and I waged a-many years ago to settle whether 
or no "God could lick Father with his little finger." 'Twas 
a draw, mother interposed with face set against both 
sacreligion and loyalty. Back across the decades and the 
continent to this weak strongman, who was born of a 
Greek father and a French mother in Athens ; speaks 
ancient as well as modern Greek, French as a mother- 
tongue, English as a step-mother's. He is eager to be 
off for France with the 361st Machine Guns. Strange to 
say, when he landed in New York he was so delicate that 
he trained at an uncle's athletic club, there developing 
the muscles which make his arm feel like a steel cable. 

Almost a daily visitor is Mrs. McCrackin of Hostess 
House, taking over flowers, comfort, fun, messages from 
"the boys," writing their letters, making herself a dear 
little errand girl. When it was found how wonderfully 
half -masks of gauze, worn not only by patients and nurses 
but by visitors , decreased germ diseases, she cut the 
creep-y gauze at Hostess House and enlisted the waiting 
women to make them. A painted lady with diamond-laden 
fingers, a sallow woman with work-gnarled hands, a pianist 
with her artist's dexterity, were equally interested and 
busy. Of course Mrs. McCrackin was of the party who 
celebrated that First Easter at Camp Lewis. Mrs. Greene 
and Mrs. Rood had provided a van-load of potted lillies, 
spireas, etc., and masses of lovely flowers. The acting com- 
mandant of the hospital. Major Greene, and of the nurses, 
Miss Booth, joined them, and Major-General Greene was 
quite as active as his wife in the cheer. He announced 
that they had forgotten to invite him but if they thought 
they were going to leave him out they were sadly mistaken. 
The flowers were piled on operation carriers and wheeled 
into every ward where choices were made. Every patient 
in the hospital that day felt, what was literally true, that 
every member of the party was a friend of his and that 
Maj. Gen. Greene really felt, what he has said, that he is 
at least a step-father to all his men. No wonder that later 
in the day, when the General read the Easter lesson in 
the beautiful service for the camp in Liberty Theater, his 



70 THE NINETY-FIRST 

men listened with hearts instead of ears, knowing that 
"the General's the real thing". 

Another ever welcome visitor is Right Reverend Mon- 
seignor Neisen D. D., to give him his whole impressive title, 
First Chaplain in the cantonment, and now attached to 
Base Hospital. He was two years beyond the age limit, 
but was especially chosen at Washington. Coming to Camp 
Lewis to visit a nephew, he was determined upon this ser- 
vice. Captain Neisen says frankly that the day he donned 
khaki was the happiest of his life and he certainly looks 
as soldierly in his uniform as he does priestly in the lace- 
trimmed robes in which he officiated at the first Xmas mass 
at Camp Lewis. The only hospital chaplain, he asks no 
questions about the creeds of the sick he visits and is broad 
in his views. One day being himself in a fever, he admin- 
istered extreme unction to a Catholic dying there. The man 
rallied but the father grew worse. Being forbidden to go 
again to the bedside, Monseignor called for Mr. Herman 
Page, an Episcopalian clergyman and asked him to 
visit his boy and remain till the end, which he gladly did. 
The tiny chapel is next to the small building used as a 
morgue. 

There are no women chaplains, are there? If ever the 
War Department should appoint one, it would naturally 
be Mrs. Ruth, wife of Captain Risher Thornberry, a woman 
still young though a strange tragedy, darkening twelve 
years, has streaked her brown hair with gray. She speaks 
Spanish as fluently as English, Japanese and Filipino. If 
women wore service ribbons, hers would be as vary colored 
as our officers' at Camp Lewis, for she was with every war 
from the Spanish-American to this. In the Philippines her 
work was recognized among thousands of men. She has 
probably seen more men die than any other person you 
know. Ordered home during serious illness, precedence was 
accorded her beyond even admirals' wives and she was sent 
to the States on a transport attended by a nurse provided 
by Admiral Wildes. Boxer Rebellion, in China, Russo- 
Japanese War, then three years amid the terrors of revolu- 
tion in Mexico — yet is eager to be sent to the first line 



CAMP LEWIS 71 

trenches in France, if she never sees her husband after 
their arrival. Here, she devotes her time to the army 
sick, writing their letters, doing their errands, amusing, 
comforting. Nothing long-faced about Mrs. Thornberry. 
She is just as apt to be slangy as not. You should have 
tagged along on the afternoon Corporal Burton's big bari- 
tone and Sergeant Tobin's tenor rollicked through the 
wards, no lugubrious hymns, but "Goodbye Maw, goodbye 
Paw, goodbye mule with your old hee-haw," or "I don't 
want to get well, I'm in love with a beautiful nurse," or 
"The Long Trail" which was what some were evidently 
following, though they waved their bony arms and clapped 
their thin hands for more. Mrs. Thornberry would give a 
flower here, a message there, and be off like an engine leav- 
ing a trail of sunshine instead of smoke through the ward. 
Queer ambition, to suffer all things with all men, to go 
part way with those who go West through a blood-red sky, 
to go all the way, if such be the orders from Division Head- 
quarters Up There. Yes, she wants to go with the Ninety- 
first to France and those of the Division who know her 
work, would like to take Mother Ruth along. Wonder if 
among Camp Lewis' Firsts, a First Chaplainess — or ette? — 
lurks? Hut Mother the Y. M's have already appointed her 
for France, if, an officer's wife, she is allowed to go. 

In Spring, when the beautiful countryside burst into 
bloom and the convalescents in Camps established to pro- 
vide pleasant quarters for those too weak to return to 
barracks, looked longingly out, automobilists came regular- 
ly to drive them along the beckoning roads, to gather wild 
flowers, or, if their charges were able, to take them to 
their own homes. Later, women took turns as hostesses 
at teas for convalescents at camp, serving dainty refresh- 
ments, brightening and hastening many a weary recovery. 
Has anything been left undone? 

Would that every face in this group showed plainly, 
for within it is many a hero's. There is no sex in Courage. 
Heroine's a word for a moving picture actress, for a 
problem novel. These women act in the greatest tragedy 
this sorry old world has ever staged, these work out the 
problem of the saddest story ever written. 




CAMP LEWIS ; 



All are young women, some but girls, but they are 
trained to efficient and rapid service. Immaculate now, 
white-clad, white-capped, white-shod, their gowns will be 
splashed with red, and the feet of some, following those 
who have gone before, will be sodden as in shambles. 
They will have no time to coil the bright hair those 
winged caps surmount. Some will sacrifice their woman's 
crown, to gain a few precious minutes in the long, hard 
day. Their nights will be short and broken and terrorized. 

The cross which marks the abode to which they go, is 
red, blood-red. For the first time since it glowed upon a 
battlefield, or shone behind its lines, the Red Cross is 
a target, the bullseye of the Prussians. 

All this these nurses know. All this as well is borne 
by the surgeons with whom they work. None bear arms. 
For them both no excitement of battle, no rush upon the 
foe, only ceaseless work, nerve-tearing fortitude; but for 
nurses, not even rank, nor fame, nor paltry pelf, not 



CAMP LEWIS 







K 



f 



[k.«Mrilbktf 








OSPITAL NURSES 



even, save in very exceptional cases, recognition of their 
sacrifice. 

Death they face fearlessly, like men, at the front; but 
for women there is something w^orse than death. In all 
time before, the merciful obtained mercy, their service 
was their honor's shield. To the everlasting shame of 
German warfare, that shield is theirs no longer. This, 
too, they know, and yet go forth. "Come back bearing 
your shield or upon it," said the warrior's mother. Either 
was honor. 

Doubtless among these in the picture are some whose 
motives would not bear the clear light of Patriotism and 
Mercy — and doubtless some others in khaki and bearing 
titles would change color under that search-light, — but 
upon most rests the crown of sacrifice hidden beneath the 
nurse's cap. 

Many of these are already in France, the rest go soon. 
God bless you, every one. 



74 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER VI. 

GEN. GREENE'S RECORD, CHARACTERISTICS, INFLUENCE — HIS 
RETURN FROM FRANCE — ROTARY CLUB'S GIFTS — EVENTS 
OF HIS COMMAND — EASTER — FIRST MACHINE GUN BAR- 
RAGE — DIVISION REVIEW UNDER ARMS, REVIEW OF TRAIN- 
ING CAMP GRADUATES, AND DIVISION PRACTICE MARCH — 
FAMOUS VISITORS — DIVISION HEADQUARTERS — MAJ. 
GREENE AND CAPT. WELTY — GREENE PARK — COL. BREES, 
MAJORS MANLEY, HERRING AND CUMMINS, CAPT. COMAN 
JUDGE ADVOCATE STRONG, MAJ. WEST, LIEUT. HOOVER AND 
NATURALIZATION — THE NINETY-FIRST'S LAST CITIZEN. 

Ready, all ready for its First Commandant Major-Gen- 
eral Henry A. Greene U. S. N. A. Looking over the great 
hurrying camp, its handful of regular army officers, them- 
selves pioneers before this polyglot army, its hundreds 
of utterly inexperienced young officers just graduated from 
the First Training School, its thousands of privates sud- 
denly removed from every civilian walk of life, willing 
but dazed, many unaccustomed to the slightest physical 
exertion, to be quickly wrought into iron men ; taking 
over a cantonment and "the makings" of a First Division, 
was it not a staggering task? But thirty-eight years' 
varied service had fashioned the Man to the Work. Prob- 
ably the War Departmment fancies it appointed him ; not 
so. Ministers, servers, are ordained. His previous life 
was the course, the Ninety-First his charge, its success 
the fruits. 

Not a man in the army has had more varied training 
since being graduated from West Point in 1879. After 
two years at the usual small post, Lieut. Greene was in- 
structor for four years in the Infantry and Cavalry School, 



CAMP LEWIS 75 

and later, for another four years; still later, Commandant 
of Army Service Schools at Fort Leavenworth 1914-16. 
These ten years alone would produce a Commandant under 
whose officers intensive training would result. Captain 
Greene headed a company at El Caney and Santiago, also 
in the campaign around Manila, where later he served 
upon the Provost-Guard and as Aid-de-camp to Maj. Gen. 
Otis. Then he was Assistant Adjutant General of the 
Army, at Washington. He was secretary of the First 
General Staff which he helped to organize. Next he was 
Chief of Staff of the Southwestern Division Oklahoma ; 
of the Northern, St. Louis. For a year, he commanded the 
10th Infantry in Alaska. He was President of the In- 
fantry Equipment Board at Rock Island Arsenal ; in com- 
mand at Fort Benjamin Harrison for three years, when 
he went to the Concentration Camp to command his 10th 
Infantry again, ordered to Panama. There he remained 
through the construction, 1911-4. For a few months he 
was in charge of the Central Department at Chicago. 
Then he went to the Mexican Border, in command of 
Divisional Districts, the first being at San Antonio, where 
as Second-Lieutenant, fresh from West Point, he had been 
posted. In the old adobe hospital at Fort Duncan he even 
occupied his old room, asking Capt. Welty who was sta- 
tioned there, if he would give it up to him, he would feel 
that he had come back home, would like to see if a Bri- 
gadier-General enjoyed it as much as a Second-Lieutenant 
had, a touch of the simplicity of this man which is so 
winning. Lastly, he commanded at Douglas, Arizona and 
came from there to Camp Lewis in August, 1917 — even 
with all this, some details are omitted. He belongs to 
several clubs and orders, holds third rank in the National 
Army of the United States, but none of this would stand 
between you in meeting him. Only the two stars upon his 
shoulder straps would intimate he is a Major-General, 
responsible for an entire Division, the largest unit of a 
great army. He is the cultured gentleman, witty, unas- 
suming, the home-lover, a maker of friends. Asked if 
descended from General Greene of Revolutionary fame, 



76 THE NINETY-FIRST 

for he is a Son of the American Revolution, he replied 
"No connection ; my grandfather went in and came out, 
a private." It is this plain speaking, his liking for men 
as men, that, as much as anything, has endeared him to 
his soldiers and the community. He does what he thinks 
right and expects his officers and men to do the same, so 
that he has fought a good fight right here in Washington, 
entrenching his command against their worst enemies. 
The men themselves admit this, while their mothers, wives 
and sisters regard him as a friend of the family. Not 
every General is entitled to that honor to wear upon his 
breast. No matter what his decorations, this is no mean 
Distinguished Service Order. One mother tried to say 
something to him about being both honored and loved. 
"Well," the merry eyes twinkled, "I should like to believe 
that, of course, but if I can't have both, I'll take the af- 
fection." Another, who had come from a distance to visit 
her son, said, "I wish Gen. Greene needed something that 
I had to give him. I feel so grateful that he set his stand- 
ard before the camp beside the flag, so to speak. We 
mothers feel that strongly. I saw him on a street corner 
once and I could hardly resist telling him so, he looks so 
kind." One thing is sure, had she done that he would 
have received her thanks with appreciation, for, as her 
boy put it, "The General's the real thing. Why it's all 
the rage to be decent out at camp, no fellow's ashamed 
of it." So you see why the motto at Base Hospital ap- 
plies here. Influence is exhalation of character. From 
Headquarters down, through high officers to low, this 
impress has become the stamp official of Camp Lewis, 
every man is marked by it before he has been long upon 
the cantonment, even though the impress be faint. 



MANLINESS 
EFFICIENCY 
DEPENDABLENESS 



The General says that one of the most statisfactory 
bits of his long service was organizing his company of 
Sioux Indians, and teaching them English; "Good soldiers 



CAMP LEWIS 77 

they were, too, I was proud of them." It is interesting, in 

this connection, that just before the 91st started for 

France, twenty-five Sioux came with the new draft into 

the Depot Brigade. And still more interesting is the fact 

that the Fh'st Indian to die in the Service during this war 

was stationed at Camp Lewis. 

Gen. Greene has the three elements of a good speaker: 

he has something worth-while to say, he says it plainly 

and humorously, and then he ends. When he first came 

to Camp Lewis he made many addresses to congregations 

and clubs in his off-hand, friendly way, which did more 

than countless government bulletins to assure and reassure 

people about army life, opportunities, and improvements. 

People trusted and liked him. Men wrote home about him 

and families grew to feel a proprietary interest in "our 

camp" and "our General". There is more than one word's 

difference in the French usage "mon General", not "le 

General". 

********** 

In the Fall, Captain, afterward Major James S. Greene, 
West Point 1904, 6th Cavalry, came to Camp Lewis as his 
Aid, later accompanying his father and Lieutenant- 
Colonel Brees, Chief of Staff, to France the end of Novem- 
ber. There Major Greene remained for a course in the 
Staff Officers School. He has the same humorous compre- 
hension as the General, who told this incident upon his 
return: Major Greene and a British officer, in the Gen- 
eral's car, went to the first line trenches, leaving the car 
and its American driver with orders to await them, there. 
They proceeded further on foot and after various diver- 
sions, such as playing target for machine-gun fire from 
an airplane, they returned wet, cold, and tired, only to 
find that the car had retreated to a village further back 
when the Germans began shelling. There was nothing 
to do but plough on through wind and rain. Naturally, 
they asked the chauffeur why he had not remained. The 
lanky Texan replied imperturbably. "I don't allow 'twas 
lack o' personal courage, but I calc'lated you'd rather walk 
three miles further to a live shuffer and a runnable car, 



78 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




MAJOR JAMES GREENE 

than to find a dead car with a driver to match." Major 
Greene remarked that the Texan seemed to have said 
all that was really necessary. It is Major Greene's small 
son who is to inherit the trench boots his grandfather 
bought at the Front, laughed the General. Just now they 
are as large as the price, which was considerably over 
fifty dollars, by the way. 



General Greene was aboard ship to return to this 
country when the Tuscania was sunk, so the vessel de- 
layed five days. There were about thirty men from Camp 



CAMP LEWIS 79 

Lewis of the 361st Infantry and the 166th Depot Brigade, 
upon the Tuscania going to join the Engineers. 

Upon his return to Washington D. C, General Greene 
passed the rigid physical examination exacted of all of- 
ficers who are to serve oversea. He reached Tacoma the 
first of March and was met at the station not only by 
Division Officers and Commanders, but by many citizens 
who made it a genuine home coming, emphasized by the 
band of the 361st Infantry's playing Home, Sweet Home 
and Happy Heinie, the official march of the 10th Infantry 
when General Greene was its Colonel, and to whom its 
composer gave the score. 

During the General's absence, his bungalow just be- 
yond Headquarters at camp had been finished and fur- 
nished, the latter by the Rotary Club of Tacoma, their 
gift to the Commandant of Camp Lewis, as a plate upon 
the Victrola announced ; but other gifts were brought one 
evening for Gen. Greene, himself. A few Staff Officers 
and their wives being at the bungalow, the Rotarians and 
their wives and a motorful of gifts arrived while the band 
serenaded. Ralph Shaffer, District Rotary Governor, 
made the presentation speech and announced that the 
Grandfather's clock which was too large for the shelf was 
to stand forty years on the fldor if the General's well 
wishers set the time; that the piano light, the library and 
council table, and the thermos carafe were for this par- 
ticular Commandant who could not be superseded in the 
esteem of the whole community. Whereupon Genera! 
Greene, with his wife beside him, replied most happily. 

The First Machine Gun Barrage Demonstration at 
Camp Lewis occurred March 22, 1918, over a field some 
distance from the cantonment, several hundred officers at- 
tending. Representatives of all Division Machine Gun 
companies fired at unseen targets a mile away, using 
sixteen of these small terrors, an officer and two privates 
to each, the former computing the range, and the others 
supplying and firing the gun, upon its tripod, from the 
trench. The only excitement was the first sputter of the 



80 THE NINETY-FIRST 

guns as the raised arm of the commanding officer fell, 
for the result could be known only after examination of 
the paper barricade far away. After a time Gen. Greene 
was motored over to make that, and to direct the moving 
of targets to another point, which must be computed by 
the firing officers before sighting for the second barrage. 
The results of this first demonstration predicted well for 
our gunners at the front. 

The very last day of March was the First Easter 
since our entrance into war. To many a dormant soul, 
in the army and out of it, the day dawned with clearer 
light, for, amid the horrors of war and in the hush of 
the nation's expectancy, faith has awakened and life is 
new. This nation was founded upon Godliness and educa- 
tion. The first building in a Colonial settlement was a 
church, the second a school; in our time the first was a 
saloon and the next a dance hall. Then, the Bible was 
both law and Scripture; lately, in streetfuls of homes, 
family Bible and family Album disappeared together. 
But when, every dawn. War opens Eternity's gates to 
thousands of men, when the sun cannot brighten the 
desolate homes to which they will never return, while 
whole countrysides, like Him of old, have no place to 
lay their heads, the "many mansions" are become very 
real habitations, and the risen Lord, after His martyrdom, 
an understanding Friend. A great service had been 
planned in which, for the first time in history, all sects 
were to participate, but this proved too good to be true, 
though Easter service in Liberty Theater that sunny 
afternoon was beautiful, the stage "in the beauty of the 
lilies" arranged by the Hostess House women. The 
vested choir followed both cross and flag, and last came 
Bishop and General, each in the garb of his service, each 
with a son at the Front. Bishop Keator preached the 
sermon and General Greene read the chapter beginning. 
"The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdelene early, 
when it was yet dark," — always has it been women who 
were faithful even when all was dark. To soldiers, which 



CAMP LEWIS 81 

think you, did the more good, sermon or reading? For 
a man to stand out as Christian and soldier, with thous- 
ands noting if he practices what he professes, requires 
courage. The service, arranged by the young Episcopalian 
clergyman, Herman Page, was printed. The people sang 
America with love, and with prayer — 

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL 
O beautiful for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain, 
For purple mountain majesties 
Above the fruited plain! 
America ! America ! 
God shed His grace on thee 
And crown thy good with brotherhood, 
From sea to shining sea! 
O beautiful for pilgrim feet, 
Whose stern, impassioned stress 
A thoroughfare for freedom beat 
Across the wilderness! 
America! America! 
God mend thine every flaw, 
Confirm thy soul in self-control, 
Thy liberty in law! 

O beautiful for heroes proved 
In liberating strife, 
Who more than self their country loved 
And mercy more than life! 
America ! America ! 
May God thy gold refine. 
Till all success be nobleness. 
And every gain divine! 
O beautiful for patriot dream 
That sees beyond the years 
Thine alabaster cities gleam 
Undimmed by human tears! 
America! America! 
God shed His grace on thee 
And crown thy good with brotherhood. 
From sea to shining sea! 
********* * 

Is it not good, General Greene, good, Ninety-First, to 
think that in your day at Camp Lewis, the first anniver- 
sary of every sacred day has rolled around? April 6 was 
Liberty Day, when the United States declared war upon 
il-Liberate Germany. There were various celebrant as- 
semblages, but one of import was the meeting of em- 
ployers and employees at a large shipyard in Tacoma, 
where carriers were being rushed. It was addressed by 

§ 7 



82 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Gen. Greene in words so genuine and modest, so thought- 
ful, helpful and friendly, that all deserve to be crystal- 
lized, but here are a few, — what an all-embracing dif- 
ference in such a talk from a Major-General in the Ameri- 
can Army and one, if he would deign to give it, by a 
Prussian Major-General. 

"Comrades of the great ununiformed army of workers, 
they have asked me to speak to you today, perhaps that 
the two branches of our defenders may be brought into a 
little closer touch and greater appreciation of each other. 
I have recently returned from a visit to the front, I have 
seen the vast expanse of battlefields and trenches. I have 
seen the needs that this country must supply, and great- 
est of these is our need for ships. 

"Our uniformed army and the army of labor need each 
other. They need your protection and you need theirs. 
They need your ships and the things that will be carried 
in those ships, and they need them quickly. The time 
element now enters into this conflict as never before. I 
know that your work is honest work, that you are build- 
ing staunchly and well. But if it is humanly possible we 
need you now to drive two spikes where you drove one 
before. This war will not be won on the battlefields of 
France, but in the workshops of America. 

"You have heard of the great German gun that car- 
ried its shots seventy-five miles and on Easter Sunday 
dropped its missiles into a Paris church. But your work 
is greater than that German gun. You will be felt in Ber- 
lin 4000 miles away. Your country needs you as it never 
needed you before, and you are a real soldier of liberty if 
you are accomplishing your utmost with your skill in this 
work that you do best." 

The 91st Division was reviewed by Gen. Greene for 
the first time under Arms, April 11. Surrounded by his 
Staff' and Foreign Officers, all mounted, at the North 
center of the great field, troops bounding both sides as 
far as eye could reach, bands playing, thousands of visit- 
ors in autos and afoot eagerly watching, Company after 
Company marched by, dipping their colors to the Com- 
mandant as they passed the reviewing station, all but 
Old Glory, held proudly erect, stars to the sky, stripes 
straightly carried by the free wind, and the serried tops 



CAMP LEWIS 83 

of the ancient firs massed at the rear, their fixed bayonets 
piercing the blue, like towering shades of departed ranks 
looking down upon this new army, gathered from a happy- 
go-lucky population, at peace since the highest officers of 
its regulars were playing soldier: not an army like that 
of the Civil War, rushed into the field, on both sides un- 
trained and inefficient, but an army fit to ally with the 
dauntless French, the valiant British, the daring Italian, 
against the Hun, for forty years darkly preparing to un- 
civilize Europe, to dominate the free sea, and to extinguish 
under submarines the beckoning torch of Liberty Enlight- 
ening the World. 

The 91st is an Infantry Division, that is has a pre- 
ponderance of foot soldiers, though every branch except 
aviation is in its makeup. Many men of that 166th 
Field Artillery Brigade never saw a gun carriage till they 
learned to mount it, yet they will give good account of 
themselves when, as that day in review. Artillery leads 
the battle. Following the cannon and their caissons, came 
the 346th Machine Gun Battalion with their guns and 
carts of ammunition; then the 181st and 182nd Infantry 
Brigades, the 44th Regulars, the 316th Engineers, Field 
Signal Battalion, Trains and Military Police, all under 
full arms and equipment. The Military Police and Head- 
quarters troops were mounted upon well matched blacks 
and bays, both furnished by Capt. Jackson from the Re- 
mount Station. Mules drew army wagons like the last 
of the old "prairie schooners" and the huge, powerful 
motors told of new days. It was an inspiring sight. Did 
you not take heart as you saw the best of our strong 
young West pass that day, Britishers and Frenchmen, and 
knew their will and skill devoted to your countries' aid? 

The 20th of April Gen. Greene reviewed the 499 gradu- 
ates of the First of Officers' Training Schools to be held 
at Camp Lewis. The "colonel of the regiment" was First 
Sergeant Richards of the regular army infantry in camp, 
who had trained them. During the fourteen weeks' course, 



84 THE NINETY-FIRST 

half of the thousand detailed had been returned to the 
ranks. Col. Brees, Maj. Cummins, and Lt. Col. Norrell, 
Commanding Officer, were the reviewing staff. The Gen- 
eral gave a short, practical talk and personally presented 
each diploma representing a Second-lieutenantcy commis- 
sion. Friends of graduates looked on with far deeper in- 
terest than the ordinary graduation calls forth, for the 
"battle of life" always referred to, was today a stern 
and imminent reality. 



The very last day of April, another First, moved the 
whole Division for practice march to Roy, six miles distant, 
traveling by five roads, 16,000 strong. For weeks differ- 
ent organizations had been working out problems of 
movement and intelligence on their hikes ; now, under 
equipment, they moved "as troops through a friendly 
country". 

The Signal Corps arrived first. Telephone and telegraph 
wires were quickly strung from Headquarters in the 
dilapidated old farmhouse among the blooming apple 
trees, to the several Brigade headquarters with their own 
flags flying. Wireless was operating back to Camp Lewis 
and the homing pigeons were ready to fly. Mounted Mili- 
tary Police followed the Signal Corps. One troop camped 
before General Headquarters, blocking entrance and chal- 
lenging; another kept the roads open. Both officers and 
line wore denim. Every organization was accompanied by 
supply trains, and every man carried full equipment, in- 
cluding half of a pup tent. The Field Artillery, 400 strong, 
guns mounted and caissons rumbling, made it appear that 
need would be for the Field Ambulance Corps and stretch- 
ers attendant upon every regiment, and for the Field Hos- 
pitals set up and ready for business. The first troops ar- 
rived about ten o'clock in the morning, and by eleven 
thirty, tents were pitched for a mile each side of the Gen- 
eral's Headquarters. Mounted orderlies carried messages, 
their service hats with black and white cords and the broad 
red band upon one sleeve proclaiming their errand from 



CAMP LEWIS 85 

afar. The Bees in the fruit blossoms buzzed their com- 
ments upon these rivals and their strange hives. 

At noon, the rations carried by the men were disposed 
of to a crumb, and in the afternoon Gen. Greene inspected 
the entire encampment. It was a long day and a strong 
day, was it not, Ninety-First? 

Many famous visitors came to Camp Lewis that first 
year. One to be received by its Commandant with special 
interest was Major-General E. D. Swinton, inventor of 
War Tanks, Assistant-Secretary of the British War Cab- 
inet, veteran of thirty years' service in many lands. Like 
everyone else, he was strongly impressed by Camp Lewis, 
and cheered by the efficiency already shown by its troops. 
General Swinton modestly disclaimed inventing the tanks, 
said it was only an adaptation of an American invention, 
the caterpillar tractor. 

Another interesting man, Father Thomas Ewing Sher- 
man, was conducted about camp by General Greene, and 
lectured at Liberty Theater, introduced by the Command- 
ant, who sat upon the stage throughout, the most inter- 
ested hearer of a most eloquent message. Father Sher- 
man's subject, "The Soldier", was one in which he should 
be versed, for he spent much of his boyhood in camp with 
his father, knew much of the Civil War, of Indian fight- 
ing, and later, himself fought in the Spanish-American. 
Remember that his father, William Tecumseh Sherman, 
was one of but six Generals our country has so honored : 
Washington in the Revolutionary War, Grant, Sherman 
and Sheridan in the Civil, Pershing and Bliss, in this. 
General Pershing and Major-General Greene have been 

twice associated in past service. 

********** 

Not an imposing structure, is it. Division Headquart- 
ers? Like all the buildings in the days of the Ninety- 
First, it is unpainted. Opposite the door, and opposite the 
staircase on the second floor, stands an orderly, or rather 
sits, rising only as one advances. Unlike such function- 
aries in most places of the sort, decidedly unlike men sta- 



86 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




HEADQUARTERS 



tioned before un-civil magnates, these soldiers are courte- 
ous. They do not anticipate in you a pickpocket or even 
a beggar. They proceed upon the premises that you are 
a gentleman, that you have proper business there, and 
that you will be courteously received within. They direct 
you in quite that spirit. The air of the place is military, 
business-like, democratic. Here the Commanding Officer 
of the camp has his office and all Division officers have 
theirs, workaday, inelegant. The Commandant's office 
boasts a carpet rug, but neither fireplace, picture, nor 
ornament. His desk, like theirs, is plain oak. 

Without, a concrete roadway circles a plaza already 
green and parked with shrubbery wherein the State 
flower, the Rhododendron, bloomed the first Spring. This 
is bounded by an artistic low wall of the omnipresent field 
stone selected to cannon-ball size. In the center of this 
green floats one of the two official flags of the camp, from 
a steel flagstaflF seventy-five feet high. Here, every day at 
Retreat, a band plays the Star Spangled Banner and as 
the colors respond to their name and slowly descend at 
the call, silence falls and within and without all stand at 
attention. Then does the Division officers* day end, just 
as the privates' does, for as yet no swivel-chair officer has 
been stationed at Camp Lewis. From General to Janitor 
all work, and work hard. 



CAMP LEWIS 87 

From that flagstaff, May 24, 1918, for the first time 
in the life of Camp Lewis, under the red, white and blue, 
floated another flag, one of red, white and green, Italy's, 
our Ally's, to commemorate the third anniversary of its 
entrance into the war; and, in Tacoma, a company of in- 
fantry from the cantonment headed the Italian parade, 
celebrating their countrymen's prowess. 

Speaking of the National air, it is true that many 
home-grown Americans do not yet know what it is. Peo- 
ple have been known to rise to Dixie. 

"Come boys, come", said old Mr. Jones, whose patriot- 
ism is truer than his music sense, "don't keep your seats 
when your Country's hymn is played. Rise, boys," and 
they rose, and stood more or less reverently while the 
orchestra played Old Black Joe! I scarcely believe that 
story, though the General, who is full of fun, asserts he 
does: says he has stood for everything else, if not that; 
says an orchestra will play a patriotic air, somebody will 
rise, people will pop up here and there like the quickest 
kernels in a corn-popper ,and, observing his uniform, looks 
surprised and reproachful will turn upon him until he is 
"fairly bluff'ed into standing", which is the respect proper- 
ly shown only the Star Spangled Banner. 

It is not every General who not only can see the joke, 
but whose inherent courtesy spares others the knowledge 
of their ignorance. If he meets a private while cutting 
across from Headquarters to his bungalow afoot — the big 
yellow car with the flag and the two-starred ensign is all 
right enough for the General, but the man likes to walk — 
he is just as apt to salute first, "pleases the boy, perhaps, 
.and does no harm", smiles he. Yet, officially, no Com- 
mander is more of a stickler, than the democratic man who 
wins friends for the Service he loves in these many small 
ways. One day, sitting in his office, the phone rang. Per- 
haps you don't know that most Generals would sooner 
take up a bomb-fuse, but General Greene's dignity is 
phone-proof : 

"Captain Welty there? — Well, that's his oflfice, aint it? 
— Do you work in that office?" 



88 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



,^rn. 



i^s — WW 










. . « -«^ 



iTlSSSSSE .f I 



THE COMMANDANT, 



CAMP LEWIS 



89 




OFFICERS AND ASSISTANTS 



90 THE NINETY-FIRST 

"Yes," said the General, "I work here. Can I do any- 
thing for you?" 

**No", very curtly, "you can't. I want to speak to 
Captain Welty himself," and he hung up, hard. 

A promising young sculptor in Tacoma, about to 
enlist in the navy to celebrate his majority, asked, through 
secretary W. P. Bonney of the State Historical Society for 
a few sittings from the General in order to make a portrait 
bust to present to the museum. Busy as he was, and 
naturally not over-sanguine about the success of such an 
ambitious attempt in a young artist, he acquiesced. 
Completed after but seven short sittings, an evening re- 
ception was arranged in beautiful Hewitt Hall at the mu- 
seum, where the work stood the severe test of comparison 
with the original, at the same height. It is exceedingly 
life-like and was presented, in a few boyish, winning 
words, by the sculptor, Allan Clark, and accepted, on be- 
half of the museum, by its president William W. Seymour, 
with encomiums upon the General, the Artist, and his 
Work, stating that the bust would be cast in enduring 
bronze in memory of him whose work at Camp Lewis would 
be as enduring. He then called upon Gen. Greene, without 
warning, to say a word. To a man less resourceful and 
unassuming, the situation would have been most awkward, 
but he certainly rose to the occasion. In a short, witty 
talk, he acknowledged that none would be apt to turn from 
the Apollo Belvedere to gaze upon these features as a 
paragon of beauty, but that there was to be seen in the 
work, talent amounting to genius ; that, after the war, re- 
turning from serving the country to which he had just 
pledged himself, the young artist would "carry on" in art, 
and that the time would come when he himself would 
proudly say, "Why, I knew Allan Clark, the sculptor, when 
he was only a boy. I had the honor of sitting for his 
first life-size work." 

Speaking of the Washington State Historical Society 
Museum, upon the Stadium where several 91st Division's 
events have been staged, including the big foot ball game 
in the Fall, it contains, amid a large amount of unusually 



CAMP LEWIS 91 

good material, two objects of unique interest and value 

at this time, the bugle upon which sounded the First Alarm 

of the Civil War to the North at Fort Sumter, and an 

entire journal in the handwriting of the First President of 

the United States. This would seem a particularly happy 

possession of a state named for Washington. Hearing this 

remark, Colonel Saville, who is deeply interested in history, 

replied that the State was not named for the President, 

but for the vessel which explored its shores under Capt. 

Gray who discovered the Columbia River and christened 

it in its own water for the other of his twin ships. 
* * * * * ***** 

Greene Park, the largest amusement zone in connec- 
tion with the thirty-two cantonments, upon government 
land across the railroad track, was named by Brig. Gen. 
Foltz, for the Commandant in France. All buildings are 
of one type, the Swiss chalet. There are the usual amuse- 
ments and shops to be found in such parks, but all must 
be approved by the War Department and are subjected to 
the control of the Commandant. Why they are allowed to 
do business on Sunday when it is against the law in cities, 
is a red tape knot which no one attempts to untie. Vari- 
ous delays occurred in the upbuilding and the families of 
the 91st had no chance of housing in the huge hotel which 
is building there and will solve many of the problems of 
officers' wives and visiting relatives. The Salvation Army 
is also building a large Hut in Greene Park. There is 
being completed a second Hostess House, solely for the 
use of the girls and women employed in Greene Park con- 
cessions, the nurses from the Base Hospital, and any 
others employed at camp. It is planned by Miss Constance 
Clark, who gave up her opportunity for France early in 
the spring, to remain at Hostess House and assist with 
this new and much needed club-house project, which will 
be under supervision of the former. It will be furnished 
throughout by Mrs. Charles Raymond, except for the re- 
ception room which will be Lieut. Raymond's gift. 

The Christian Science Headquarters chalet in Greene 
Park is in charge of Mr. Joseph Reynolds and his sunny- 
faced wife. 



92 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAPT. M. D. WELTY 



Capt. Maurice D. Welty is Gen. Greene's Aid-de-Camp, 
Aid, for camp or trench, office or zone. Born in Greens- 
burg, Pennsylvania, in 1886, and graduated from its High 
School, from the U. S. Military Academy in 1910, he 



CAMP LEWIS 93 

spent the customary three years in the Phihppines, then 
returned to the States, joining the 5th Infantry at Platts- 
burg. In 1916, he went with the 3rd Infantry to Eagle 
Pass, Texas, became First-Lieutenant in July of that year 
and General Greene's Aid, which he has been ever since, 
coming with him to Camp Lewis in August, 1917, as Capt- 
ain of a month's standing. Just before the 91st Division 
started for France, Captain Welty became Major Welty. 
He has been Camp Censor of all news and photographs, 
and had charge of Greene park during his chief's 
absence in France, in fact his duties have been 
varied and exacting, but he has shown himself able in 
them all. For some time before the Division left, he was 
Acting Assistant Chief of Staff. 

:|: * * ***** * * 

A Major-General is entitled to three Aids, two 
Captains and a First-Lieutenant. The last named is Lieut. 
George P. Raymond of Santa Barbara and Akron, Ohio, 
who has filled a position requiring tact, with tact and to 
spare. In May, the vacancy caused by the promotion of 
Captain Greene to Major, was filled by the assignment of 
Capt. Dean C. Witter. Maj. Greene, though in France, is 
still attached to the 91st Divilsion. Aids-de-camp are con- 
fidential officers who represent their chief in many ways 
and who, when at war, bear his messages, verbal or writ- 
ten. They wear upon their collars a shield surmounted by 
an eagle, the top of the shield bearing one star for a 
Brigadier's, two stars for a Major-General's Aids, so that 
at a glance credentials are attested. 

Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert J. Brees is Chief of Staff, 
executive officer for the Division Commander, responsible 
for the workings of the Staff Officers, and Assistant to the 
Commanding Officer, supervising and co-ordinating the 
work of the entire command. His appropriate insignia is 
a spread eagle above one star. Col. Brees was born in 
Wyoming and, just out of college, was appointed from 
civil life in 1898 when there was dearth of officers for the 
Spanish-American War, after which he entered the In- 
fantry and Cavalry School and Was Honor Graduate in 



94 THE NINETY-FIRST 

1903. Two years later he was graduated from the Staff 
Officers College, and two years thereafter, from the Army 
War College. Probably that exhausted the college supply, 
at any rate he served in Texas during the Border troubles 
and then became assistant at Plattsburg Training Camp. 
He came to Camp Lewis September 1, 1917 as Chief of 
Staff, whose principal peace duty is supervising camp 
training. No wonder every informed visitor who has seen 
the other cantonments exclaims over the advanced train- 
ing of this one, with a co-ordinating officer so prepared. 
Col. Brees is strong for universal service. Says he, ''Would 
anyone care to live, even in this boasted Twentieth Cent- 
ury, in a city without a police force? Preparedness is the 
Policing of a Nation." He certainly looks personally pre- 
pared for any attack, sitting at the right of Gen. Greene 
in this group. As a photograph this picture was a success, 
but it hardly seems possible that many genial friendly 
gentlemen could possibly look so grim and uncompromis- 
ing, not to say vicious. As Hun exterminators, however 
their faces are their fortunes. Gen. Greene in the center is 
all but unrecognizable. Behind him sits his son, with Capt. 
Welty at his right. At the left of the General, Division- 
Surgeon Field stares out as if upon something to be borne 
no longer — Division Surgeons have borne much through 
the ages since the two sons of ^sculapius held that com- 
mission with the Greek army. The man behind him, 
because of the wristwatch has by some been recognized as 
Lieut. Raymond, and the one clasping his knee with foot 
braced for the worst, is Maj. Manley, though hitherto he 
has hidden his sorrows from the world under a smile. The 
next grim personage is genial Major, later Lieut.-Col. 
Herring, Ordnance Officer. On Col. Brees' right is 
Lt. Col. Coleman. He is not handcuffed, though it would 
seem safer — he is one of the finest looking men on the can- 
tonment — and the next is Judge-Advocate Strong. The of- 
ficer beyond who looks as if this were the last thing he 
intended to bear, is Maj. Cummins; and the end man is, 
I suspect, Maj. Wyman, but I am not sure. Because of 
his gray mustache, that is probably Maj. Smith, a dis- 



CAMP LEWIS 95 

tinguished looking man, in the flesh — the one behind Col. 
Coleman. Since Capt. Cook appears as a white man else- 
where, it is just as well not to mention that the Chinamen 
next the Major is he, nor is it, perhaps, kind nor respect- 
ful to name two or three others recognized. 

Major Fred W. Manley was graduated at West Point 
in 1905. He spent two years and a half mapping the 
island of Luzon and was then ordered back as instructor 
at the U. S. Military Academy. He was with Gen. Funston 
at Vera Cruz and was appointed Municipal Treasurer in 
the office of the Provost-Marshal. This, as a purist would 
say, "was sure some job," for the Mexicans are taxed for 
their very thoughts. At Plattsburg he was Adjutant of a 
New York regiment, was attached to the First Ofl^cers 
Training Camp, and at the end of August last year be- 
came Division Adjutant at Camp Lewis, He wears a 
shield with one large and several smaller stars upon it, 

Maj. Manley is literally a human document. All cor- 
respondence to and from the command passes through 
him ; he is charged with its records ; under direction of 
the Commandant and the supervision of the Chief of Staff, 
he issues all orders to the Division. During the first days 
of receiving the draft and assigning it to organizations, 
last September, there were no precedents to follow, but 
now, through Personel Officer Capt. Coman's co-ordinat- 
ing office, perfect system has been established. Succeeding 
Division Officers will follow these pioneers and possess the 
land. During the absence of Col. Brees in Europe, Maj. 
Manley, as ranking officer, was Acting Chief of Staff. He 

is now Lieutenant-Colonel. 

********** 

Another of the Division Administrative Staff, Major 
Ralph E. Herring, belongs both to Artillery and Infantry 
with overlappings, one would think, into Cavalry, Com- 
missary and Trains. His department furnishes every- 
thing in the way of arms, automatics, ammunition, rifles, 
bayonets, trench knives, pistols, grenades, cannon, cais- 
sons, mortars, shells, everything used in killing, as he says ; 
trucks, wagons, saddles, and all equipment to get men and 



96 THE NINETY-FIRST 

ammunition there to do the fighting, down to belts and 
buckles ; and even table ordnance, for after all food wins 
the war, and knives, forks, spoons, canteens are its small 
arms. So that Maj. Herring, keeping the entire Division 
supplied with all such material death, and the ammunition 
required for army practice in dealing it, is not of the 
ranks of the unemployed. Nor did he happen along as 
the position was to be filled. Maj. Herring has fought in 
three wars, volunteering from his native state, Minnesota, 
for the Spanish-American to begin with, and he will see 
plenty of service before he is retired, for he was born in 
1877. He was a "distinguished graduate" of the Coast 
Artillery School in 1908, and from an advanced course in 
1912, having been appointed Captain of the 1st Artillery 
Corps the preceding year. He came to Camp Lewis the 
1st of September 1917 as Major, and was appointed Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel in May. Quiet, pleasant, calm, one can 
scarcely connect him with so wide a knowledge of death- 
dealing missiles, I had almost written missives which, in- 
deed, they are, for they spell Peace, at the best, while their 
star shells serve to illumine sign posts which Prussians, 
Austrians, Turks, Infidels all, cannot but read as they toil 
along their lost territory — 



TO LIBERTY 



Maj. Avery D. Cummins, Division Inspector, and Maj. 
Manley were classmates. The former was born in 
Spokane and has been stationed in the West most of his 
Service, upon the Ute Reservation, at Nome, at the first 
mobilization at San Antonio, and upon the Panama Canal 
where he went with the first regiment, the 10th Infantry. 
He watched the great canal's construction, and guarded 
its locks until they unlocked the Pacific to the Atlantic. 
He had been with Gen. Greene for six years, and, like 
everyone else who has been associated with him, supposes 
there are others as good, but is well content to take it by 
hearsay. 

Maj. Cummins, though young enough to have been 
represented in the Civil War, so to speak, by a grandfather 



CAMP LEWIS 97 

who was one of the first settlers of Walla Walla, Wash- 
ington, exercises oversight over the entire Division and 
its officers as to efficiency, discipline and general conduct, 
inspects every variety of supplies, arms, and equipment, 
the expenditures for public property, the accounts of of- 
ficers responsible for those expenditures, oversees conser- 
vation of stores, and atop all this, suggests betterment and 
correction — seems as if that is all. He is the "Bulldog 
of the Treasury." To be sure he has seven regimental 
officers and eleven lieutenants under him for details of in- 
fantry, artillery, base hospital and so on, but even at that 
he can scarcely be "as idle as a painted ship upon a painted 
ocean," he has to move. No wonder his insignia is the 
fasces — a bundle of rods bound to an ax which Roman 
magistrates had carried before them as sign of authority: 
rods for correction, ax to hew away if milder means pre- 
vail not. The fasces is crossed by a sword over a wreath 
bearing a French motto which, freely translated into 
Americanese is, "Be sure you're right, then go ahead," a 
fit motto for a position requiring so much judgment, decis- 
ion, and force. Every officer is required to register his 
finger prints as means, with photograph, tag, and the like, 
of identification in event of casualty in France. Maj. Cum- 
mins' finger print would surely be sufficient without 
further identification : it must be a swirl of lines for, 
that he has served well — Look Around. 

Capt. Daniel J. Coman, Divisional Personnel Officer, 
went to the First Training Camp at the Presidio from 
Portland — wonder if there is a man left in that patriotic 
city — and came to Camp Lewis in August. In the rush 
of thousands of drafted men, it was a difficult beginning, 
but Capt. Coman's system is now simple and effective. You 
home people are more interested in the work of his office 
than you know. Every man that has ever entered Camp 
Lewis has his individual number. Any man still in the 
cantonment can be located at once, transfers being im- 
mediately reported. Company by Company, information 
is carded and lists alphabetically arranged. Statistics as 
to relatives are kept, and this great card section goes with 

§ 8 



98 THE NINETY-FIRST 

the Division to France. First-Lieutenant Dorton is the 
Personnel Officer and Statistician and Second-Lieutenant 
Barrett has charge of war risk insurance cards. 

Every recruit fills out a card supplying various in- 
formation, such as his occupation in civil life, how long 
pursued, how long in one place, at what salary etc. This 




CAPT. DANIEL J. COMAN 

card is guaged by lines, at the top, and upon its edge are 
two "flags," bits of celluloid, orange for ordinary, green 
for expert — should think they would be reversed. At a 
glance, an accustomed eye can tell just what degree of 
skill the man indexed possesses. A recruit also expresses 
his preference for certain service and in assigning him to 



CAMP LEWIS 99 

an organization, this preference is considered if possible, 
either then or later. So that the Personnel office has much 
to do with placing a square peg in a square hole and a 
round in a round, conducing greatly to personal content 
and army efficiency. Western ranch men, for instance, 
prefer the Cavalry, but in this case must be content with 
the Remount. Some men have never liked their trades or 
occupations and welcome assignment to something new. 
If any trade worker is needed on the cantonment he can 
be immediately located and secured through this card 
index. Once, a regiment desired a horseshoer, reference 
to this department showed that an expert was connected 
with it, and he was assigned to the work. Gas engine men 
were needed at Kelly Field and they were supplied from 
Camp Lewis in this way. Capt. Coman has also lists of 
Religious Objectors, who are assigned, as far as may be, 
to such units as do not offend their consciences. Many of 
these, by the way, have seen the light. 

Mrs. Coman was a Red Cross Nurse in Portland before 
her marriage at Christmas, and had expected to go with 
the Portland unit which was lately mustered into service 
abroad. The United States, however, refuses passports to 
all women whose husbands serve in the allied armies, so 
Mrs. Coman returned to Portland as nurse, releasing one 
who may go overseas. At this time there is abundant use 
for the old English motto. 

io f r Npxtp oIIiyttQp 

American of Americans is Major George V. Strong, 
Division Judge-Advocate at Camp Lewis. From Elder 
John Strong down, the Strong's "haven't missed a scrap." 
Several took a hand in the French and Indian ; they were 
Strong in the Revolution, Captain Richard was killed in 
the War of 1812, and Lieutenant Robert P. in the War 
with Mexico. Rear-Admiral James H. Strong also pro- 
ceeded against Mexico, and commanded the Monongahela 
against the ram Tennessee in the Civil War Battle of 
Mobile Bay. Though these and many more were Strong 



100 THE NINETY-FIRST 

for war, they were also strong for peace. The Keverend 
Nathan Strong, Pastor of Hartford's First church, was 
chaplain in the Revolutionary War, and wrote "The Doc- 
trine of Eternal Misery Consistent ivith the hifinite Bene- 
volence of God" — nothing daunts these Strong's — and the 
old account says he was noted for his wit! Maj. Gen. F. 
A. Strong, Commandant of Camp Kearney is of them. 

Those that did not fight in uniform, fought as lawyers. 
Our Division Judge-Advocate has done both. Born in 
Chicago, graduated from West Point in 1904, appointed 
to the 6th Cavalry, served in the Philippines. For three 
years and a half he was attache of the Japanese Embassy 
at Tokio where he came in contact with such men as Togo, 
Sir Claude McDonald, of Peking Legations fame, and Lord 
Kitchener, with whom he traveled for two weeks. Both 
Maj. Strong and his wife speak Japanese. Having taken 
a law course at the Northwestern University, Chicago, and 
seen the wonderful results obtained by the combined minds 
of a physician, a probation officer, and a Justice, In the 
Juvenile Court there, he even then began working along 
the line of co-ordinating work, in Army justice. He was 
instructor for a year at the Staff College, Leavenworth. 
As First-Lieutenant he served in the Mexico Border 
troubles — the Strong's seem to "have it in" for Mexico. 
In 1915 he was assistant to the Judge Advocate at the 
Disciplinary Barracks, Leavenworth ; afterward the head. 
He came to Camp Lewis August 31, 1917, as Judge Ad- 
vocate, and organized the Psychiatric Department to work 
with him for the great advance in Army justice methods. 
So Camp Lewis boasts another great First, the employ- 
ment of Psychiatry, considering the individual accused, 
rather than the offense as belonging to a class of mis- 
demeanors. About two percent of the population are in- 
sane, you know, what more reasonable than to suppose 
a man stupid enough to commit a crime, especially in the 
army, where he is morally certain to be apprehended, be- 
longs to this number? With experience both in fighting 
and in law, a Western man in a Western Division, Major 
Strong admits a large admixture of "horse sense" in the 



CAMP LEWIS 101 

administration of his office. As he says, the National 
Army is quite different from the regular. Discipline must 
be maintained, but discrimination used in deciding what is 
designed. When a soldier is accused of crime, he is 
examined physically and mentally, with all obtainable data 
as to personal and family history, civil and army record. 
According to Major Smith's report as to result, the man 
is returned to his home with transportation paid, sent to 
an insane asylum, or tried by court-martial and his sen- 
tence forwarded to Washington for approval. His trial 
must take place within fourteen hours, and thirteen offic- 
ers compose the jury, with a prosecutor for the govern- 
ment and a councillor for defense. A stenographic re- 
port is taken of every case; the Judge-Advocate reviews 
this for legal error. Every chance is given the soldier. 
Remember, ours was the First Country to consider the 
accused innocent until proved guilty. It is suggestive that 
advocate means "called to aid." The Judge-Advocate's in- 
signia is a wreath with sword and pen crossed over it, 
the latter above, for 'The pen is mightier than the sword." 
Maj. Strong has two assistants, Maj. West and Lieut. 
Hoover. During the Judge Advocate's three months' 
absence in the Winter, Maj. West served. 

Maj. Eugene R. West is another good fortune for 
Camp Lewis, a brave soldier, an experienced lawyer, a 
man kindly and just. A Virginian of fighting stock, he 
went from West Point to the Philippines, serving under 
Generals Scott and Wood. He modestly admits that "there 
was something doing most of the time." Severely wounded 
at Jolo, he lay undiscovered upon the ground for three 
days and nights, in the tropics, without water. The re- 
sult was ten months in various military hospitals, and dis- 
charged as unfit for military service. Although a South- 
erner, he was of the West in name and spirit, so he set- 
tled in Seattle where he practiced law for ten years. When 
war broke out, he was in perfect physical condition — a 
man who had survived those hideous days and nights was 
destined for service when needed. He came at once to 
Camp Lewis. 



102 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




LIEUT. H. D. HOOVER 



First-Lieut. Hubert D. Hoover, assistant to the 
Judge-Advocate of the 91st, formerly a lawyer in Loo 
Angeles, was in charge of the last great accomplishment 
for the Division at Camp Lewis, and so remarkable was 
it that Lieut. Hoover, as Captain Hoover, was especially 
ordered to join the Judge Advocate in work overseas, leav- 
ing nearly a fortnight after the Staff's exit. This was 
the naturalization of 5200 aliens, lacking one. Of these, 
2127 were in the Division proper, the others in the vari- 
ous depots of the cantonment. There was just one man 
over 1000 Italians; there were 960 British, from their 
various colonies; and but 87 Frenchmen. The rest were 
from almost every country the world over. Every ap- 



CAMP LEWIS 103 

plicant was vouched for as to loyalty and conduct by his 
company commanders. It was certainly a strange pro- 
ceeding, the First of its kind, it seems. 

After much study, a system was evolved which was 
all but automatic. The aliens census was taken the end 
of May and the new citizens must be examined and sworn 
in, in three weeks. Those who have seen an automobile 
entirely constructed "while you wait" at an exposition, 
and its purchaser take its wheel and drive out, will agree 
with one of the Camp Levv^is naturalization officers that 
the alien was passed along in the same way, emerging in 
forty minutes with citizen's paper which in the old way 
would have taken five and a quarter years, some Hoover- 
izing that! Wonder what relation this Time-Saver is to 
the Food Saver? It is something to have worked a new 
verb into the language. The first step was taken at the 
Depot Brigade Library, where all aliens in a company 
appeared at once with their commanding and another of- 
ficer of theirs, before a deputy commissioner, who ex- 
amined the applicants and issued certificates to all who 
seemed fit. Next he appeared with the certificate succes- 
sively before the twenty-four soldier naturalization clerks, 
each of whom subjected him to a special inquiry, signed 
his paper and passed him along, just like fitting the auto 
with wheels, carburetor, hood and the like. All but breath- 
less, the applicant received his papers, very like a signed 
railroad ticket from coast to coast, and, indeed, that paper 
did translate and transport the man from many countries 
far and far away, as if by magic carpet, — or Persian rug, 
since one came from the Land of the Fire-Worshipers. 
The man from Monte Carlo did not know whose control he 
renounced, shouldn't think he would, and gambling already 
ruled out of the army. There were several Russians, too. 
When it came to naming the ruler of their country, they 
looked at one another and at the oflJicers, and the Court 
and — well, even the Judge did not know. Those Russians 
M^ere obliged just to "renounce the devil and all his works" 
and let it go at that. On the contrary, three Bohemians 
know too well whose allegiance they would abjure, the 



104 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Austrian Emperor's, and the name prevented citizenship 
for them. It transpired all three had hated Austria all 
their lives and they broke down entirely, one bursting into 
tears. 

One proved valuable as interpreter, a Second-Lieuten- 
ant, assistant to Chief of Staff. He bears the great name 
of Italy, de Medici. One might have written a fascinating 
book from the material of that naturalization, a book of 
many heroes but of no heroines, except the shadowy ones, 
unseen of others, who yet are the rulers of men's lives. 

When large numbers of candidates had been so passed. 
Federal Judge E. E. Cushman held naturalization court at 
Camp Lewis and swore in groups of men according to 
their nationalities. June 1st, 1156 were made citizens, but 
six days later 1454 renounced their birth countries during 
one session ! A week later 286 cases were disposed of, 
and since then, 18 from the Officers Training School have 
received citizenship. It should be added that although this 
wholesale naturalization was accomplished in record-break- 
ing time, great care was exercized, and that several offic- 
ers, beside the clerks, were present to see that everything 
was in order, to check petitions for legality or errors. 
Aliens remaining in immobile units upon the cantonment 
will be examined and naturalized from time to time. 

Capt. Cassius R. Peck is the Camp Judge-Advocate. 
He has also been president of the exemption board, and 
has carried on the naturalization of aliens. Beside all this, 
Capt. Peck was Acting Division Judge-Advocate during 
the interim between the departure of Maj. Strong with the 
Ninety-First and the arrival of Maj. C. C. Cresson, who 
succeeded him. Capt. Peck was in the Infantry, obtaining 
his commission from the First Presidio Officers Training 
School, but, having been an attorney at Coos Bay, Oregon, 
he was transferred to the legal department of the army. 

"So that 2914 newly made American citizens went out 
with the 91st Division". 

"No, 2915". 

"How do you make that out?" 

"I didn't. Judge Cushman did. This morning, Friday 
June 28, 1918, at 10 o'clock precisely, he took the bench 



CAMP LEWIS 105 

and the papers of Sergeant Gustave Carl Crepin of the 
316th Ammunition Train. Though born in Germany, 
Crepin left the courtroom an American Citizen, and two 
hours later left Camp Lewis, with the 316 Ammunitions, 
an American soldier! He married an American woman 
who, said he, was of a family among the first to settle in 
this country. His father was a Hollander and his mother 
French, but being born in Germany, naturalization was at 
first refused, and Crepin actually shed tears. However, 
his officers were sure of his loyalty, he was eager lo fight 
for the Country he had chosen, his knowledge of German 
would be an advantage; the case was reviewed. So the 
91st and Camp Lewis, in this book belonging to both, pos- 
sess knowledge which surely cannot be positively claimed 
at any other cantonment: the names of the First and Last 
citizen to enter and to leave it. We have bidden Goodbye 
to thousands, but to you, our newest new citizen. Hail and 
Fare-well by land and sea, in trench, on field, since you 
fare forth for that Liberty which must be to all peoples. 
We will not say, in the language of the forked tongue, Auf 
Wiedersehen, but fare ye well. 

Lt. Col. Coleman, Division Quartermaster, and Maj. 
Wyman, Division Signal Officer, also at Headquarters, will 
be spoken of in connection with their departments. Of all 
the Division staff, and of the regular army officers through- 
out Camp Lewis, who have brought it to front rank among 
the cantonments, it is truth to say that they are in the 
Service with a captain S. Contending with difficulties 
which will never confront their successors, they have estab- 
lished a standard which will lead their followers. Like 
Master, like Man, Maj. Gen. Greene both commanded and 
served. The 91st will distinguish him as he distinguished 
it, and the people of the Northwest will bid him God Speed, 
with regret, when he goes. 



106 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER VII. 

BRIGADIER-GENERAL IRONS AND HIS XMAS GREETING — CAMP 
LEWIS' FIRST CHRISTMAS — DELEGATES FROM PORTLAND 
AND MONTANA. 

Brig. Gen. James A. Irons was graduated from West 
Point Mith Maj. Gen. Greene and Brig. Gen. Foltz, and 
succeeded the former in command of Camp Lewis when 
Gen. Greene went to France in November, 1917. Second- 
Lieutenant Irons was in at the subduing of the Creeks in 
Indian Territory, and remained Second till appointed in- 
structor in engineering at Infantry and Cavalry School 
eight years after. He was First-Lieutenant six years — 
the rapid promotions of the National Army were unheard 
of in the regular — served as Captain during the Butte rail- 
road strike riots. He and his friend, now Major-General 
Greene, fought in the 20th Infantry at El Caney and San- 
tiago, Cuba 1898, and both, later, served upon the Provost 
Guard in Manila, responsible for political prisoners. In 
fact, the two officers have been closely associated many 
times since they were cadets. Chief Quartermaster Irons 
of the 3rd Division, under Gen. Bates, was recommended 
for brevet and again in '99 after fighting, still with the 
20th Infantry, at Gaudalupe, Pasig, Cainta, and in the is- 
land of Luzon. Having won so many recommendations, he 
would naturally be rather an authority upon honor medals, 
brevets and the like, so he was placed upon a board for 
consideration of the same at Manila. 

Major Irons was detailed, 1901, to Inspector General's 
department, became member of the newly organized Gen- 
eral Staff, and one of a board for Revising Infantry Regu- 
lations — rect)mmended again by Chief of Staff Gen. 



CAMP LEWIS 



107 




Photo by Hamilton 



BRIG. GEN. JAMES A. IRONS 



Chaffee. Next he was Assistant Chief of Staff in the 
Western Department. In charge of a sector of San Fran- 
cisco after the earthquake and fire, Gen. Greeley mentioned 
his work. In fact. Brig. Gen. Irons seems to have acquired 



108 THE NINETY-FIRST 

the habit of being honored, and unable to break it. In 
1907 he became Mihtary Attache to the American Em- 
bassy, Tokio, remaining three years, till he was ordered 
back as Colonel of his old regiment the 20th Infantry, his 
first, in 1879. 

In March 1907, he was returned to Japan and acted as 
Military Observer in the Japanese-German campaign in 
China — you remember it was to the troops there to be 
engaged that the Kaiser addressed his now historic admon- 
ition to consider themselves the modern Huns and to 
inaugurate that *'frightfulness" which was carried back 
and exceeded for Belgium, while he himself became Attila 
the Second, "Curse of God" — and Man, It is to be hoped 
that the Chinese will have an opportunity to remember. 

To return with Gen. Irons to the United States, he 
was detailed to accompany the Japanese Mission while 
in this country, from August till toward the end of 
October, 1917, when he proceeded to Camp Lewis to take 
over the 166th Depot Brigade, and a few weeks later, 
the cantonment. So it befell that he issued the First — 

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS FROM CAMP LEWIS 
By Brig.-Gen. James A. Irons, in Command 

"The Christmas holidays are here and with them our 
thoughts turn to the message expressed 1917 years ago. 
Yet at this time the realization of that message must be 
temporarily postponed. We are at war with the Hun ; we 
are mobilizing our every resource in order that the Hun 
may be defeated ; and we are exerting our every energy 
that "Peace on Earth, Good Will Towards Men" may never 
again be wilfully violated. 

"The men who have recently become members of our 
military machine are strong men ; strong morally, mentally 
and physically. Yet there are many obstacles ahead of 
them ; many hardships to endure ; many temptations to 
withstand. As our men have overcome such obstacles in 
the past, so may they continue to do so in the future. 
They have been ably assisted by our brothers and sisters 
in civil life, and we look to them to encourage that spirit 
of loyalty which is absolutely needed to conduct any war 
to a successful issue. 



CAMP LEWIS 109 

"The purpose of the medical department is to assist 
in maintaining physical strength, not only by curing, but 
also by preventing disease. The mutual assistance of 
man to man must be availed of in order that a firm stand 
may be taken against moral temptations; the free library 
and publications are to be utilized to the end that mental 
acuteness and acquirement of knowledge, military and 
otherwise, may be forwarded. Every opportunity in a 
material way has been availed of to maintain and enhance 
the vigorous strength of our men. Yet, perhaps, the most 
important thing of all is that which cannot be represented 
by more buildings nor apparatus. The spirit of co-opera- 
tion, of helpfulness, man to man, without regard to rank 
or grade, does not find expression in concrete terms. But 
it is upon that spirit, already so admirably shown, and 
upon the increasing prevalence of that spirit, that the 
morale and efficiency of the machine so largely depend. 

"We have entered upon a huge task, a serious task, a 
task requiring the concentration of all our faculties. But 
at the same time we must not forget the pleasant incidents 
which are so important in making this life a livable one. 
And so, depending upon the many material advantages 
ofl'ered, depending upon that spirit of mutual co-operation 
inherent in our American manhood, we must look forward 
to the day when the United States of America will emerge 
from this cataclysm a nobler nation, and the world a better 
one." 

Kindly and suggestive, is it not? Thought you would 
like to keep it as part of your Division memories. An 
officer said of Gen. Irons "He is one of the best loved men 
in the United States Army." 



Christmas, of all Holidays in an army camp ! At 
home, some men, many, do not hesitate to call "the whole 
business a nuisance," and most men leave its plans and 
surprises entirely to their women folk. But they must 
have been pretending all these years, safe in their know- 
ledge that the home folks would celebrate, for the 91st 
approached its First Army Christmas pretty dolefully. 
Excitement began, however, several days before, with mail 
bags bursting and huge trucks bringing tons and tons of 
boxes and mysteries. When Mother sent Son a gift she 
more than often enclosed one for his Pal, or better still 



110 THE NINETY-FIRST 

for the soldier at large who might lack a gift. Lists 
were requested and individual names written upon pack- 
ages, companies received gifts enough for all on their 
rosters; men from certain sections received packing cases 
"not to be opened till Xmas," greens were sent from afar 
and gathered anear, decorations went up and great fir 
trees came down, the cooks wore preoccupied looks, and 
sergeants became even as other men. The only cross thing 
on the cantonment was the Red one. Those who had 
known festivities all their Holidays felt enlarged ones in 
the air, and many who had never known what the season 
meant, not even that Christmas was any different from 
any other day — fancy! caught the wonderful spirit. 
Men of large affairs in the world they had left without, 
grown blase, turned boyish and eager, talked of Christmas 
with their fellow privates who had kept their taste for 
simple pleasures, and with others who had never had any. 
Young officers planned for "our men" and old ones egged 
them on — My, but it was Christmasy ! Clubs of all kinds 
and classes, orders which ran almost into disorders, 
churches, towns, schools, Y's both W and M, sent gifts, 
so that, to make a long story short, every solitary man 
among the camp's more than 30,000 received not only one 
gift but two. I said solitary, but there was not one soli- 
tary on the cantonment. For at least one blessed day in 
their lives, every man got out of himself and met his 
fellow half way, and so broadening and inspiring was 
it that many a man never re-entered his shell. One pack- 
age was addressed "Lonesome Boy". It was the only one 
not delivered, "They wan't no sich a person." Is that 
not only half of the truth, old Ninety-First? 

To begin with Christmas Eve, did you ever see any- 
thing more beautiful than that great, still Tree of Light 
upon the space opposite Headquarters? Hundreds went 
out from Tacoma to join you about it and to sing "Holy 
night, peaceful night" and "My country 'tis of thee." 
People who owned autos picked up people who had none, 
and nobody was old. There were Christmas trees in Hostess 
House and the Y-huts and some of the barracks too, hung 



CAMP LEWIS 111 

with tinsel and stars and popcorn. The men of Capt. 
Queen's company of the 362nd will never forget their 
tree which he and their Lieutenants Grant, Enderly, Dorris 
and Closterman had planned days ahead. It was gay 
Xmas eve, and hung all over with gifts for every man 
next day just before the onslaught upon Turkey and 
dependencies. 

At midnight, in the tiny Catholic chapel over by Base 
Hospital, Monseignor Neisen doffed uniform, donned robes, 
and officiated at Christmas mass, assisted by other chap- 
lains, the only midnight service permitted in the diocese. 
He, too, sent a message to soldiers and their families and 
ended it: "A7id so, to every mpther of every son I send 
greetings, and the ivish for peace and the gr'eat under- 
standing that must come out of this bloody struggle" . 

As for the hospital itself, every ward had a Xmas 
tree, holly and Oregon grape wreaths, colored paper chains, 
and in ward 73 one patient cut a red letter "God Bless 
Our Home" and it is on the wall yet. It was the men, 
here and everywhere else on the cantonment, who did all 
the decorating and insisted that their ward, Y, mess hall, 
was "the darndest," so remember, when Johnny comes 
marching home again, he's camouflaging with Xmas 
greens, just as Father used to do about taking us children 
to the circus — Father dearly loved a circus. Why, the 
men made themselves into Santa Clauses — you did, you 
know you did ! and not another boy on the cantonment 
except you 30,000-odd selves to blame it on. And after 
Taps Xmas eve, Kathryn Morgan, nurse in 73, whose 
glorious hair was sufficient to light the way, and ten of 
the hospital men for reindeer, conveyed Mrs. Santa Claus 
Emmons of Seattle's Sunset Club through every ward 
and hung a great red stocking, traditionally filled, to every 
bed rail, over 1000, for the boys to see first thing in the 
morning. Of course women have always known that men 
never grow up, their hair turns gray, they double their 
eyes, and that sort of thing, but its for "external use 
only", internally and eternally they are boys, our boys, 
bless *em. And eat! Why the mortality at that hospital 



112 THE NINETY-FIRST 

should have been frightful but wasn't. Every mess ser- 
geant at camp claimed he furnished the crack, and crack- 
ing, dinner but, surely Pearson carried off the honors. 
Though he started three days before with plenty of K. P's 
it's some job to use two barrels of mincemeat, so they 
gave up baking pies round, and took to tins three by two 
feet. Think of nearly 1500 pounds of turkeys — can't 
you smell them this minute, and hear the machine-gun 
pop of 300 pounds of cranberries? Two sacks of nuts 
cracked intermittently like rifles on the range, and think 
of that sweet cider from Brown's fruit ranch near Olymp- 
us — no Olympia, but it certainly tasted like the nectar 
of the gods, 250 gallons of it. Two barrels of pickles 
were off set by 200 pounds of candy. As for that huge 
Xmas cake, with war eagles and doves of peace perching 
on the same scrolls, presumably containing diplomatic 
correspondence, it was the only frost upon the occasion. 
Even that said ''Merry Christmas to the Boys" and tasted 
like it. If ever Reiss, erstwhile pastry cook at the St. 
Francis, San Francisco, made a better, will he not men- 
tion the occasion? Perhaps he will even outdo himself 
with Victory designs when the Ninety-First "takes the 
cake" in Berlin and cuts it with their trench knives. 

Nor was music lacking, former orchestra conductor 
Livingston of Bishop Theater, Oakland, now of the corps, 
took his violin into every ward and played whatever the 
boys called for, — almost forgot Tacoma's $5,000 Christmas 
present to Camp Lewis hospital, two truck loads of 
whisky and brandy, confiscated in liquor raids and a 
godsend — think of that! to the hospital. The Military 
Police escorted the gift, for obvious reasons. 

Now there is absolutely no connection between that 
present and a bar that was certainly unique in Christmas 
decorations in the mess hall of Company I of the 363rd, 
for even if they were in quarantine, nobody present had 
measles, and whisky isn't good for measles anyway. Lieut. 
Frazier admitted that bar, said they had not seen one 
since leaving California, a few of the boys were homesick 
for one, so four bartenders had done their bit as they 



CAMP LEWIS 113 

saw it, though khaki does seem many ranks above such 
service. To be sure there was nothing but pop, but it was 
in bottles, and you could drink it from canteen cups which 
sounded liquefying, and their jazz j^layed mazyly, and — 
well it's none of my business. Anyway, they had two 
lovely Xmas trees, one each side of a fireplace, and O'Neill, 
properly dressed for the part, is said to have come down 
it. At any rate, he distributed a thousand packages to 
215 men — the officers had been hiding them for days and 
had checked the company roll to be certain every man had 
at least two gifts. No wonder. Did you ever hear of a 
Xmas committee with the loikes of thim? Ancient Order 
of Hibernians, Orangemen, Masons, Knights of Columbus, 
Druids, Protective Portuguese society, U. P. E. G., Sons 
of Italy, Brotherhood of St. Andrew, Foresters, Sinn Fein, 
Elks, Red Men, Moose, B'nai B'rith, and I. O. O. F. Talk 
about a Melting Pot ! It surely took the warmth of Christ- 
mas fires, and in an Army Camp, to fuse that committee, 
not to speak of the "stunts which followed the eats" when 
a member of a University glee club, circuit riders not 
listed among the Methodist elders, etc., all "obliged." 

Upon that committee served no Indian, but to seven 
of his people already in the trenches in P'rance, Chief 
Mason, son of the blind centenarian of the Quinaults, 
Chief Taholah, sent Christmas boxes, one of which came 
too late, eternally too late; for upon the Birth Day of the 
Prince of Peace His Indian servitor entered into The 
Presence. 

********** 

The Y's certainly came out strong at Christmas-tide. 
Asked to take charge of tons of gifts, addressed and un- 
addressed, they accomplished the huge job wonderfully 
under Secretary Sinclair Wilson. From Y. M. C. A. Head- 
quarters they were scattered to the eight Y-Huts, and 
Companies and town groups hunted out. A huge packing 
case was marked "For Washington Men;" the Fresno boys 
had a large box of raisins; the Oregon Agricultural Col- 
lege men received 200 presents from that. They hunted 
up all the First Presbyterian Portland, members and the 

§ 9 



114 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Woodard-Clarke employees and gave each a box from their 
church or their firm. Such a wonderful Christmas — wish 
every giver and gift and recipient were known ! The Y. 
M's were worn to a thread, yet their autos, loaded with 
boxes addressed only to Camp Lewis soldiers, went to 
every nook and corner of the cantonment, to be sure every- 
body was remembered. Doubtless many a man that day 
received his first Christmas present and it did him good, 
no matter what it was, for the givers gave of themselves — 
"The gift without the giver is bare." There was no per- 
functory giving. Leftouts are the saddest of people, there 
were none at Camp Lewis, Xmas, 1917. 

As children say, unsight and unseen, E. W. Strong of 
Portland, never enjoyed such a season. The Apollo and 
Ad Clubs sent him as their combined Voice, their em- 
bodied Merry Christmas. Secretary Grilley met and 
rushed him from one Hut to another and to Hostess House 
to sing and recite. Instrumentalists joined him and they 
even serenaded the quarantined. People came from Ta- 
coma and Seattle and Olympia, and made it home-y — one 
cannot touch the edges of that Christmas. Why, forty- 
five members of Fergus County War Relief Association 
"dropped in from Montana to be representing hosts" for 
a banquet at the Elks' beautiful club house in Tacoma for 
450 Montanans from that county, the majority from the 
348th Artillery and the 362nd Infantry. Clubs kept open 
house and detailed some one at the 'phone to answer re- 
quests for "soldiers to come right up to dinner." Privates 
arriving strangers, departed friends. Dancing parties 
were legion with the nicest girls in their prettiest frocks 
and Merry Christmasest smiles. 

Much of this had happened before, so platoons of this 
first Division will record upon one of the blank pages in 
this book a problem in Addition performed during these 
Holidays. Ministers carried on an all but continuous per- 
formance ending in congratulating Mr. and Mrs. Happy. 

I believe in my heart that Gen. Greene is more than a 
little sorry that he was in France this first united Christ- 
mas of the National Army. He would have enjoyed every 



CAMP LEWIS 115 

minute of it and would have found some way of making 
all of his boys feel that, depend upon it. For Gen. Greene 
firmly believes that this great National Army is mustered 
by the Prince of Peace Himself, that they serve under His 
banner which is Love, so that our very guns do roar the 
message from Headquarters. 

Glory to God in the Highest 

And on Earth Peace 

Goodwill toward Men. 



116 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE 166th depot brigade — COL. p. W. DAVISON, C. 0. — 
CHAPLAIN FISHER, A CHAPLAIN'S QUALIFICATIONS — A 
NOTABLE FIRST REVIEW, A FIRST CAMP MILITARY FUNERAL 
— WELCOMES — COL. HYER, MAJ. WHITE — Y-5, DAVIS AND 
DR. WINECOFF — EDUCATIONAL ADVANTAGES — EARNING 
HIS OWN — FIRST INDIAN TO DIE FOR THE COUNTRY — 
CROSS PURPOSES. 

The Depot Brigade is what might be called a clearing 
house for recruits. It does not belong to the Division, yet 
every man in the Division enters it for initial training, 
and is himself studied as to what branch of service he 
is best suited. After weeks or months in this primary, 
recruits are transferred to companies depleted by order 
to other camps or to France. The right man at the head, 
and the right officers throughout the Depot Brigade, are 
thus of utmost importance, not alone in hastening military 
efficiency, but in arousing enthusiasm, so large a factor 
in the success of any undertaking, but especially in this 
which, at first, perhaps, is not of the man's own seeking. 

And again Camp Lewis is fortunate. Colonel Peter 
W. Davison organized the 166th Depot Brigade as 
has been mentioned, with one private, who constituted his 
entire command for three days ; within a month there were 
21,000. Col. Davison is still its Commanding Officer, and 
barring a few weeks when Brig. Gen. Irons was C. O., 
has been ever since. Born in Wisconsin, he has known 
little but Western service since his first post in Montana. 
He was cadet at West Point when Gen. Foltz was in- 
structor there. 

Col. Davison is no Fourth-of-July officer. He went 
to Cuba with the first troops, witnessed the surrender to 



CAMP LEWIS 



117 




> 



COL. P. AV. DAVISON, COMMANDING THE DEPOT BRIGADE 

Gen. Shafter at Santiago, the signing of articles of capitu- 
lation, and the raising of the American flag. He saw 
active service through the whole campaign in the Philip- 
pines even to enduring a siege with typhoid — one foe this 
army will not engage. After two years in Alaska he went 



118 THE NINETY-FIRST 

South to Texas, East to Washington D. C. and a place on 
the General Staff, then West till it was East again as Aid 
to Gen. J. Franklin Bell in the Philippines and in China 
for the Boxer Rebellion. At Tien Tsin he of course knew 
Consul-general Knabenshue and his son, now Lieutenant- 
Colonel. Almost all the ranking officers at Camp Lewis 
are friends of many years and many climes and posts. 
Having aided in temporizing Philippine and Chinese ban- 
dits. Col. Davison returned oversea to chase Mexican ban- 
dits under a tropical sun, then over-land to cool off in 
Alaska under the midnight sun. For two years he was in 
charge of construction wagon roads throughout that broaa 
territory. When the United States entered the war, just 
his sort of man was needed to help organize a National 
Army in that West which he knew and whose men he 
understood. 

Pouring in, the first draft was necessarily assigned hap- 
hazard, principally where barracks were ready. A carload 
of bunks would track, be unloaded in a jiffy, rushed to bar- 
racks, set up, beds made. If there were not enough, it 
was blankets upon a good big fourposter bed — the floor. 

But the next draft found everything systematized. 
Near Depot Brigade Headquarters now stretches a khaki 
colored tent three-hundred feet long, gateway to the Pri- 
vates' West Point. After checking, physical examination 
etc., these recruits to the God of War emerge from the 
long tent as strange as if just landed upon his planet 
Mars. If there is a minute from cradle to grave when the 
young Martian appreciates a Hail-fellow-well-met it is 
that, and he receives it at the very tentflap, be it the mid- 
dle of the night, or worse, the ghostly chill of just before 
dawn, in which case the extended hand holds a cup of hot 
coffee. It is a young fellow from Y-5 as he at once calls 
the Young Men's Christian Association's Hut Number 
Five, to be formal for once, A fellow would study a recipe 
for stove polish under such circumstances, so he reads 
every word upon the card handed him as he starts for 
barracks, inviting him to Y-5's reading room with its big 
stone fireplace and thousand volumes, or its writing room 



CAMP LEWIS 



119 



with free stationery — the Y. M. C. A. buys its ink, literally, 
by the barrel, and its stationery, one supposes, by the 
paper-mill — to free concerts and movies and boxing, meet- 
ings, classes for anything he elects to study, beside which 
stamps, money orders, candy and tobacco are sold, and 
friends are ivaiting. As a young fellow said : "I ate up 
that card and I hiked to Y-5 first chance and began to 
feel human again. I had felt like a stray dog, would have 
answered to the name Tige." 

Col. Davison is interested in everything that advances 
his command. Before the camp theater was ready, the 




^^m>m . **#r«»#i.*'*'*-*»*"'' 



DEPOT BRIGADE LIBRARY 



Depot Brigade had its own, built and equipped by its men. 
they built and furnished with the proceeds from a vaude- 
They decided upon an assembly hall and a library which 
ville early in February. This was so clever that four per- 
formances turned away crowds and was repeated. All 
talent was from the Depot Brigade or from men who had 
passed into other units, and were ex-professionals. So its 
Library has a huge stone fire-place surrounded by a wide 
circle of armchairs. An iron kettle swings from a crane, 
long-handled poppers and marshmallow forks hang at its 
sides, long they must be, for the huge rustic woodbox con- 



120 THE NINETY-FffiST 

tains logs. Beside the poppers hangs a large galvanized 
pan and upon a shelf stand salt and melted-butter pot. 
In the center of the long hall are racks of "home papers." 
There are many magazines and seven-thousand well chosen 
books. This is one of the branches of the Base Library. 
At the end is a stage for the jazz band — you know we 
have the best, of course, every one has — and in a moment 
the floor can be cleared for dancing. There is a bench 
swung by chains from a ceiling hung with Japanese lan- 
terns. The windows are curtained, everything stained 
green and brown, quite like the home club only more men 
with broader views and more interesting experiences drop 
in. You may meet any kind of a man in the Library of 
the 166th Depot Brigade except one only, a Snob. There 
was one at the cantonment, but he has gone. 

The matter of clothes has had much to do with real 
fraternities, distinguished by no pins, whose suits are 
identical in material and cut; whose shoes and hats differ 
only in size, where no man wears a four-in-hand and none 
a worn readymade tie. There is truth in the old saying 
that the consciousness of being correctly dressed confers 
a serenity which religion is powerless to bestow. 

Speaking of religion. Chaplain William Loren Fisher 
sits over in the Library's corner, that is, his chair is there, 
but the Lieutenant is seldom stationary, with several 
thousands to be big-brothered. He is big too, body, mind 
and heart. A well-meaning enthusiast said, "He puts jazz 
into religion." Lieut. Fisher has shot Kodiak bears in 
Alaska, which takes nerve and even foolhardiness when 
hunted alone, as he hunted. He is an angler, too, and 
with Peter of old responded to the ' 'Come and I will 
make thee fishers of men.' He is a Fisher of men who 
plays many flies. He organized a baseball team in his 
Seattle church, though some insinuate that it was to show 
off his own batting. He delivered his salutary in Greek 
when graduated from Bethany College, West Virginia, 
took a degree from Yale, went to Oxford for further study, 
and traveled widely in Europe before settling to a large 
New York city pastorate. Yes, they need an all-around 



CAMP LEWIS 121 

man for chaplain of the 166th Depot Brigade, and they 
have him. 

A chaplain's insignia is a silver cross upon the collar. 
A lady at camp who had just met a Catholic chaplain and 
noted this cross was introduced to Lieut. Fisher. Glanc- 
ing at the cross she said, "Glad to meet you. Father 
Fisher." 

"Not I," laughed the chaplain, "I am father to nothing 
and nobody. I'm an old bachelor," though old he is not. 

By the way, it does seem that the chaplains' age limit, 
forty, should be extended, especially as, by international 
law, they are not allowed to bear arms ; also that they 
should acquire higher rank than First- lieutenant from 
which now they cannot rise for seven years. This puts 
men of culture, experience and success, all of which they 
are required to be, at a serious disadvantage in dealing 
with those of higher rank. Requirements at Washington 
D. C., for chaplains are rigid, and a local army board 
passes besides, upon their personality and ability to deal 
with men : No weaklings nor "cissies" wanted. Most 
chaplains have resigned large churches to enter this ser- 
vice. For these reasons, chaplains are scarce; there are 
but ten at Camp Lewis. General Pershing considers them 
so important at the front that he cabled for at least six 
to each regiment of three thousand six hundred men. 
Camp Lewis averages about one to four-thousand men, or 
more. Do? Nothing but assist with the education of 
soldiers, mornings; with athletics, afternoons; with their 
entertainments etc. evenings ; visit their sick at infirmaries 
and base hospital, and the guardhouse prisoners if they 
ask for the chaplain or wish him for council at trials ; pull 
men out of their "slough of despond," act as regimental 
postmaster, speak at six or eight services on Rest Day, 
and other things to while away the time. So a chaplain 
can be neither long-faced nor long-winded, his must really 
be a gos-pel, joy-tidings. As he goes into the fighting zone, 
he must be physically fit to endure all hardships of the 
battleline, and being unarmed, no coward need apply, nor 
a self-seeking man, since the work is without hope of 



122 THE NINETY-FIRST 

advancement and distinction. Since no man is accepted 
as chaplain who was not successful as clergyman, it 1,^ 
clear he is one to be a leader among the men. The idiotic 
classification of men, women and ministers is dead as 
Rameses. 

Wandered quite a piece, as they say back East. But 
you see that, hitherto, army officers in blue and clergymen 
in black, both are serving in olive drab, cut after the same 
pattern. Loyalty, and as Col. Davison said to his brigade, 
"Loyalty is the heart of everything." He has the faculty^ 
of inculcating Loyalty at the very start, so men are more 
attached to the Depot Brigade that would seem possible 
in a body never two days the same: Monday, more men 
than should constitute a Company, Tuesday no privates and 
all officers, like a missionary society. 

The Colonel prizes a gift made by two of the men. a 
filing case of slashed fir, covering a wall, its well-fitted 
drawers made to hold 100,000 indexed cards. Every man 
mustered into Camp Lewis is represented by name and 
full particulars. If only skeleton facts might embody and 
relate the life stories suggested in that cabinet! Names 
harking back to founders of this country for whose con- 
tinued freedom their descendants are enlisted, and of 
every nation under heaven ; names of men young but al- 
ready known, and of nonentities who shall yet be great 
by reason of this they go to do; names which, signed 
to a scrap of paper would convert it into piles of gold, 
touching names which could not draw a dollar bill; names 
which but yesterday appeared in blazing lights and star- 
ing headlines, or cut into their sculpture, scrawled upon 
their painting, or printed in their books — privates all. 
Which will sound again? For "All men are born equal 
but most of them can't live up to it." 

There is to be an odd but sensible addition to data 
upon these cards, from May on, shoe dimensions. Many 
men have been rejected because of their feet. A century 
ago Napoleon said, "A foot-sore army is an army half 
defeated." If he had spoken American, he would have 
profanely shortened that to D-feet bring defeat. At 



CAMP LEWIS 123 

camp, doctors have kept recruits' pedals in order and shoes 
have been carefully fitted, but now a man must hold a 
forty-pound weight in his hands while trying on field shoes 
over two pairs of thick woolen socks, thus allowing for 
marching under equipment, for swelling of feet and shrink- 
age of shoes in mud. Summer shoes are to be fitted over 
one pair of cotton socks, but under the weight. 

Depot Brigade officers change frequently. Col. Weeks 
was transferred to command the 364th regiment. Col. 
Offley was ordered to France, and Col. Hyer who had 
charge of a National Guard training cam.p in Georgia for 
some months returned to this brigade. Under such offic- 
ers wonderful results are gained from recruits in short 
order. This was demonstrated in a remarkable review 
held May 17, 1918, when 10,000 men, every one drafted 
just three weeks before and thus dependent entirely upon 
instruction, having no earlier arrivals to imitate, marched 
to the music of the 16Gth Depot Brigade band, and bore 
themselves right soldierly. Grouped about Maj. Gen. 
Greene upon the reviewing stand, were veterans of the 
Civil War from the G. A. R. convention of the week, some 
who had fought Indians in old days, officers of the Spanish- 
American War, the Boxer, the Mexican Border, a group 
seldom to be assembled today, and impossible to be 
gathered in a near Tomorrow. How many of the thou- 
sands who passed in their First Review, will, fifty-three 
years hence, as veterans of our National Army to seat 
Civilization, occupy a reviewing stand? At first suggest- 
ion, few, for these draft men are from twenty-one ^o 
thirty years and the majority of the Civil War were boys 
of eighteen to twenty; yet people of advanced age are al- 
ready ten years younger than they used to be, and the 
training of this new army will make virile fathers of a 
generation never to be allowed to lapse into slothful phys- 
ique, and there will be a "daylight saving" of another ten 
years. Our whole nation is signed to a new lease of life, 
and though its specified term of years varies, many of 
these marchers, alas, having but one year affixed to theirs, 
what is a world-minute or two when "or for life", and that 



124 THE NINETY-FIRST 

life everlasting, is added to the lease? So, though the re- 
cruits who took part that May day had not been with 
the Ninety-First in all their experiences their First Review 
was unique and will prove to the future what can be ac- 
complished by men following the Stars and Stripes and 
backed by their brave in other wars. 

The Rainbow Division in France was called the Silent 
Army by the Allies, but the next will not be. After this 
review, the men surrounded a smaller stand and Song- 
Director Lloyd led the largest chorus, ten-thousand, ever 
singing under one conductor. The songs were strongly 
typical of two wars ; of the Present, Keep your head down, 
Allemand. and Over There; of the Past, Tenting Tonight 
and the Battle Hymn of the Republic. So glad both sorts 
were sung. To be sure I am old fashioned, but don't you 
think, yourself, that there is just a trifle too much "jazz" 
in life just now? because, you see, there is death, too. 

^ ^~ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ■^ ^ i\f 

Other bands are envying the enlarged repertoire of 
the 166th. Everybody noticed the army bands appeared 
to be practicing for a grand ensemble of Over There, till 
listeners could not down a feeling that they would be hap- 
pier there. Mark Twain, speaking of general dissatisfact- 
ion with the weather, said that everybody talked about it 
but nobody did anything. Miss Ray Sawyer of New York 
both talked and did. She found it no lack of skill but of 
funds ; band music is expensive. The effect in brass would 
be Hunnish if the memory of the trombonist were played 
against that of the French horn. Miss Sawyer told music 
publishers here was a great chance to get into the war 
and they enlisted more than $15,000 worth of band music. 
The Depot Brigade is the fiirst at Camp Lewis to receive 
a gift from their godmother. 

The evening of the review, a coming-out party was 
given for Companies 1 and 7, honoring their formal in- 
troduction into Camp Lewis Society, as butterflies of 
fashion emerging from the chrysalis of quarantine by 
which sub-deb recruits are for two weeks enclosed. Elabo- 
rate dinners were followed, quite in Four-hundred style, 



CAMP LEWIS 125 

by (ex) professional entertainers. The Hawaiian quartet, 
director Awai and Kalama of the 346th F, A., Gonsalves 
of the Motor Supply Train and Dimond of the Depot Brig- 
ade, string players and good singers, are always in de- 
mand, and supply. Capt. Allen of the 1st arranged their 
program and acted as toastmaster and Capt. Zellermeyer 
of the 7th was in charge of theirs, Lieut. Ives represent- 
ing Headquarters Battalion, officers of both attended. 
Never were debutant affairs so friendly and inspiring, so 
free from jealousy and heartburn. In fact, the whole 
Brigade welcomed the newcomers. The 7th Battalion gave 
them an open air entertainment attended by three thou- 
sand, officers and their wives swelling the throng. The 
program was so clever that it should be detailed. It seems 
a newcomer loses no time in announcing his ''stunt" and 
offering it, of course free, for the entertainment of the 
rest. For instance, this same draft brought a man you 
have probably seen in flesh or film in the Pendleton Round- 
up, the champion clown trick rider, a wonderful rope- 
spinner. And so it goes. No other cantonment in the 
country has held such numbers of many kinds of artists, 
owing of course, to California's large proportion of the 
91st Division. 

The higher officers are the more exasperatingly modest, 
in this case you spell it Hyer, Col. Benjamin B. Hyer of 
the 166th Depot Brigade. Since his graduation from West 
Point in 1893, he must have lived many a story. He was 
Captain of Company L of the 6th Cavalry when they 
captured the only silk flags seen in China, from the Mili- 
tary Governor of the Province of Hu-pei. The Secretary 
of War sent him a letter of congratulation to be read at 
Retreat before all the troops. When Peking was taken. 
Col. Hyer was of the small body of soldiers from each 
nation which paraded the Forbidden City, that strange, 
court city-within-a-city whose very name spells autocracy, 
mystery, art; whose precincts had hitherto never echoed 
a foreigner's football, nor even that of a Chinese not of 
highest rank, and whose Temple of the Sun is well named. 
An incident of a visit to Li Hung Chang's palace was a 



126 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




COL. BENJAMIN B. HYER 



peculiar drill by his Chinese Body Guard, and a weird 
banquet of thirty-two courses. Col. Hyer has served three 
times in the Philippines, has been stationed at Honolulu, 
in fact, as Col. Davison's has been Western service, his 
has been largely Eastern though he fought Mexicans on 
the border for three years. 

Another good man for the 166th Depot Brigade is 
Capt. W. A. Dietrich, adjutant, brainy, known among 
scientists abroad, was for three years a leader in the 
Boy Scout movement in London, and resigned a large 
church to go to the PresidiOo He fought in the Spanish- 



CAMP LEWIS 127 

American, and has been in Europe since this war began. 
He has been interested while at Camp Lewis in forward- 
ing the Boy Scout movement thereabout. 

If, in talking about good officers, Maj. Calvin S. White, 
surgeon, of the brigade were omitted, the Depot would 
pronounce this worthless. One would think him personal- 
ly responsible for the health of every man, so much in- 
dividual interest does he take; a man is not a "case" to 
him. Some receive a great price, and some pay a great 
price for a position; of the latter is Maj. White, who left 
a surgical practice in San Diego which brought him, in 
money, about thirty-five times what he receives at Camp 
Lewis. But everything, thank Heaven, is not paid for 
with money. Note the looks which follow Maj. White, 
rather than the comments which are apt to be, "Now 
there's some guy:" "You bet, he's a corker." It was 
Maj. White who instituted a series of practical talks upon 
personal hygiene and communicable diseases at the Y. M. 
C. A. Auditorium to which he marched the new recruits, 
every day, two-thousand strong. Then there was a half 
hour singing under director Lloyd, two weeks of it. 

Y-5 is distinctive among the eight Huts in some re- 
spects, one being that it is adjacent to the mustering tent, 
and "next" to men at their loneliest, strange to this new 
life, to one another, even unacquainted with themselves. 
It is significant that Y-5 has sold $500 of stamps in one 
day. So it is extra important that the secretaries of this 
Depot Brigade Hut should be "good mixers", live, capable ; 
and they are. 

"Mr. Davis? Oh yes, you mean Tom," a young Butte 
lawyer who made twice as much money the day he closed 
his office as he does in a month of hard work here. Be- 
cause he was married, with two children, the army would 
not accept him then. A friend insisted he was cut out 
for a secretary, while waiting his chance to get into the 
ranks; the Butte Rotary Club refused his resignation as 
vice-president but admitted vice looked bad for a Y. M. 
C. A. young man, so they elected him president-on-leave ; 
his wife said go, and thousands of men are glad he did. 



128 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Even his temper is human. One of the men chuckled as 
he told of "a soldier who tried to be funny. Tom made a 
few remarks which sizzled and offered to throw him 
through the window. It blew over, but Tom's fun was 
gone so he calls out, 'No use boys, I'm rotten 'shamed, 
Christmas, too. What a devil of a fool a man with a 
temper makes of himself. Well — " he turned and pointed 
to that motto : Getting up every time you fall down makes 
you ivatch your step." 

There was another Davis secretary at Y-5, son of the 
Butte man who gave the camp that mammoth athletic 
building. He sent the Hut a six-cylinder car which "might 
come in handy," and before it was exchanged for a per- 
fectly good Ford, it did. A little son, near death, begged 
for Tom Brown, cowpuncher, writer, the best story teller, 
the boy's hero. But the man had been swallowed by Camp 
Lewis. Y-5 would find him. Among the 40,000 were two 
Tom Brown's. Both were located, the rightest Tom Brown 
in the world found, and driven to his little friend. The 
Y's aim at being all things to all men, and they are not 
only hitting the target but, very often, the bullseye. 

In this National Army, the principal amusement of 
the old one is strictly tabooed, gambling. In Y-5 hangs 
a poster. Three of a kind heat ttvo pair, whereon, between 
the pictures of Washington and Lincoln, President Wilson 
finds himself in rather overwhelming company, while 
below are the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, Von Hinden- 
burg and Ludendorff. Speaking of the President, his 
cousin. Dr. Thomas E. Winecoff, was educational secretary 
of Y-5 until May, when he was ordered to France with the 
first group for work among the French soldiers on the 
battle line. Dr Winecoff speaks French like a Parisian, 
preached in German for years, knows five languages in- 
timately, and has a speaking acquaintance with twenty 
others, a convenient gift of tongues in the Depot Brigade. 
However, the doctor does not consider himself a linguist 
but a mathematician, while the Smithsonian Institute lists 
him among scientists. He has hunted orchids in wilds 
along the equator and in many a forest, only to be him- 



CAMP LEWIS 



129 




DR. THOMAS E. WINECOPP 



self discovered by some rare specimens in the woods quite 
near Y-5. These orchids Hve so retired that they had 
heard never a word about the war, and the doctor re- 
moved them to a safer place. 

Unlike the proverbial Jack-of-all-trades, Dr. Winecoff 
has succeeded in all. As civil engineer, he built a speed- 
way at Nashville, Tenn. Dr. Winecoff is also a poet. He 
was a Mississippi college president before he was twenty- 
five, has been professor in several colleges, twice delivered 
the commencement address at the Univrsity of Washing- 
ton, and for twenty-five years was an Episcopalian rector. 
Then he became United States Marshal in the far North, 
headquarters at Fort Yukon, Arctic Circle district, travel- 
ing by dog sled or canoe. For several years he "marshaled, 
and did research work for the Smithsonian on the side", 
securing rare moths and molluscs, and has been asked to 
resume this work after the war, for the moment he heard 
we had gone in, he hurried down from Alaska to enlist. 
Refused because over age, he offered himself to the Y. M. 
C. A., provided he was listed for the war zone. This is 
why the Depot Brigade has had him all these months for 

§ 10 



130 THE NINETY-FIRST 

educational secretary. He has been a perfect godsend. 
Directing any studies the men chose, he himself hurried 
along the classes in English by understanding their own 
speech. One class of seven had as many nationalities. A 
Hindoo suggested time might be saved by each making 
notes in his own language. Looking through these notes, 
Dr. Winecoff found Singh's in Sanscrit, which "happened 
to be" one he could translate — as well as the other six. 
Yet about Dr. Winecoff floats no disagreeable odor of 
sanctity nor of midnight oil. His is the applied religion 
and knowledge of an all-round man. This suggests another 
motto on the wall, "Being square doesn't mean being a 
blockhead." 

Our National Army, especially this Western Division, 
is largely composed of educated men, yet it has some who 
read no language. They are immediately put under in- 
struction and usually make wonderful progress, grouped 
among their kind, and taught by soldiers. Others are 
educated in their own languages, but ignorant of ours. 
For instance, in the Depot Brigade a newcomer was al- 
ways "half a beat behind" in drill. It transpired he was 
a graduate of a European university, an ex-lieutenant of 
the Russian army, but ignorant of an English word, he 
could only quickly imitate. He was especially coached. 

One class in English was reading instructions from 
Washington regarding the treatment of women when our 
victorious troups should enter an alien land, a corporal 
explaining. It is doubtful if any plain reading lesson 
ever drew forth more dramatic expression, at least of 
face, for French, Italian and Belgians were in the class. 
Another circle was laboring upon our history of Revolu- 
tionary times, eliciting the statement that this country 
fought only on principle, and compared our un-equipped, 
half-starved troops of that time, in tents through the bitter 
Winter at Valley Forge, traced over the ice by their bleed- 
ing feet, without shoes or coats, pay or promotion. As 
the men contrasted all this with their own food, housing, 
clothing, equipment, opportunity, entertainment, in the 
best paid army the world has ever known, the identity of 



CAMP LEWIS 131 

purpose of that little Colonial army and this great Na- 
tional one was inspiringly apparent. Many a rifle is 
sighted by insight like that. 

Right here seems to be a good place to remark a 
huge Compensation, the wonderful opportunity for educa- 
tion at Camp Lewis, equal to any great University. Col- 
lege men are brushing up their mathematics, algebra, cal- 
culus, logarithms. You may take drawing, mechanical, 
typographical, sketching. History, elementary or ad- 
vanced, may be extended. Specialists will teach what- 
ever desired, free for the asking. Many a man who has 
longed for a higher education hitherto forbidden by lack 
of time or money, is seizing this opportunity. Hard physi- 
cal drill only invigorates his mind and sharpens his wits, 
so his evenings of instruction and lectures by authorities 
advance him much faster than college periods. He ivants 
to learn, so does everyone else in the class : 

You may drive a horse to water, 
But you can't make him drink. 

You may send a hoy to college, 
.But you can't make him think. 

As for languages, native teachers for any you desire; 
French the favorite, but Spanish a close second, as after 
the war our trade with South America, all Spanish-speak- 
ing peoples, will be enormous, and our returned soldiers 
will be prepared. Y-5 specializes in commercial Spanish. 
It is taught by a last-year professor at the University of 
Utah, who was to have held a big position in South Amer- 
ica, this. Speaking of Spanish, a recruit in overalls came 
to the counter at Y-5 and asked to be enrolled for it. 
Would he like to join any other class? Well no, but per- 
haps they might use him as teacher; he mentioned isms 
and ologies, some of whose names I knew the meaning of. 
Y-5's French teacher, one of them, a volunteer, lived many 
years in Paris. He never tried teaching before but they 
say he does that as well as he ran his 950-acre wheat farm. 

And when a former employe of your father's is your 
captain, and you got nothing but foot ball out of college, 



132 THE NINETY-FIRST 

and they beat you at that in camp, and nobody drinks here, 
and you're only a private, and a private-private at that, 
and your diamond ring looks cissie on a rifle finger, and 
nobody knows nor cares that your father's a multi-million- 
aire, and when the man each side of you earns thirty dol- 
lars a month by the sweat of his brow* and you do, the 
first you ever earned, it looks too important to dissipate, 
and it laughs at the five-hundred-dollar-a-month alloivance 
you have had doled out to you like a baby, and so you 
"chuck it" and begin to work up. You can buy a ticket 
for quite a way down the road to the devil for five-hundred 
every month, and as you must go back to the cross roads 
to — oh well, he did it, this spoiled boy of the Depot Bri- 
gade of whom I am telling you, just as hundreds of him 
are doing this minute. And when his mother came up 
from California to see if he could not be exempted, he 
showed her the stripes on his sleeves, he told her to turn 
in the five hundred per to the Red Cross, a trifle like that 
didn't interest him, now that he was earning his own 
money, and he showed her around the camp, and intro- 
duced her to his pals, and she saw a light in his eyes that 
her idiocy had all but extinguished, and his captain said 
he was to have a third stripe, and he is really talking 
French now — and ALL is Well. 

^ :!: * :j; :|: ^ ^ i^ 9f ^ 

When one remembers that the site of Camp Lewis was 
an Indian valley, and that the last of the Nisqually's left 
the cantonment but a few weeks before the Ninety-First 
did, there is a strange significance to the fact that the 
First American Indian to give up his life in this war came 
from that very camp and straight from the Depot Brigade, 
dying on Christmas Day in France, 1917. His name was 
Eli George, Squa-De-lah, late a pupil of the Government 
Indian School at Tulalip, Washington, a school founded by 
a French priest nearly sixty years ago — and again the 
fateful connection with Lewis and Clark. Captain Clark 
was young when he came to this coast. General Clark he 
afterwards was, and Governor of Northwest Territory, 
and United States Superintendent of Indians. To him 



CAMP LEWIS 



133 




Courtesy of Dr. C. M. Buchanan 
ELI GEORGE, FIRST AMERICAN INDIAN TO DIE IN THE WAR 

at St. Louis, twenty-seven years after the wonderful 
Expedition, came those left of another as wonderful, two 
Flatheads and two Nez Perces, to beg that he would send 
their people words from a God they did not know, but 
who, they had heard, had spoken to the white people and 
instructed them how to live as would please Him. Bishop 
Rosati heard this appeal and it touched him, so that he 
wrote of it and of the long, perilous pilgrimage through 
hostile country and many months of suffering. The ac- 



134 THE NINETY-FIRST 

count was published in a missionary paper of Lyons, 
France and read by a boy, Eugene Chirouse, who straight- 
way vowed to go to that far America — "Him therefore 
whom ye ignorantly worship, declare I unto you." He 
studied for the priesthood, came to this Northwest, took 
First special vows at Walla Walla, and in time reached 
Puget Sound. Many a weary day has he plodded across 
this camp, the stones rough to his feet, on his way to 
Olympia, his Headquarters. He organized the Tulalip 
School, was its head for many years and died there, where 
he is buried, in 1892, greatly beloved by the Indians of 
**01d Oregon," among whom he labored for forty-two 
years. He died just before Eli was born, but the boys' 
parents had loved the old Father and the France that 
bore him, so, then, did Eli; for Indians, more than white 
children, follow their fathers' ways and loves. So when 
war ravaged Father Chirouse's France and threatened 
our own country, which first was the Indian's, the boy 
went gladly into the army, and soon to France, where, in 
the stead of that earlier boy Chirouse, he lies. 

Another link with the old: this Squadelah was lineally 
descended from a man who was in his prime when Lewis 
and Clark came in 1803, Seattle, who saw the first ships 
sail into Puget Sound, and the Beaver, first steamship 
upon the Pacific where now such countless craft ride. Eli 
was also descended from Chief Kitsap, more highly re- 
garded by Indians than Seattle, the name of the one a 
fruitful county's of the other, a great city's. 

When the G. A. R. convention, noticed above, was 
held, Allen A. Bartow, youngest of its veterans, attended. 
A thirteen-year-old drummer boy. he had been mustered 
into the Civil War with a militia company. He was 
Indian agent at Suquamish Reservation when Eli was a 
young pupil there. Later, the boy attended the Tulalip 
Indian School where Dr. Charles M Buchanan, distin- 
guished linguist and historian has long been superintend- 
ent. He it was who loaned this cut of Eh George which 
appeared in the Tulalip (school) Bulletin for June. In a 
letter, he explained that the picture was made from a 



CAMP LEWIS 



135 



postcard belonging to Eli's family, taken just before leav- 
ing for France. So many have been generous to this book. 
Dr. Buchanan added that part of the school Memorial Day 
exercises — his celebrations of all holidays at Tulalip are 
notable — was the unveiling of ? life-size, handsomely 
framed picture of Eli George, which will hereafter hang 
in Assembly Hall, draped with a silk flag. The First 
Indian to die for the Country in this war, a distinguishing 
honor to their school! Indians, by the way, have shown 
strong patriotism in this war, enlisting in numbers, a 







• . ■ ■ ... • ' ' .. * 


P 


'^^^v^^^Hj^^Hj^Q^H 


'"? .■ 



OFFICERS' CLUB HOUSE 



patriotism very greatly to their credit when one remem- 
bers that they have not even been considered citizens in 
the land of their birth. 



Officers of the Depot Brigade have a club house which 
is the envy of all others at Camp. Lieut. F. H. Reimers, 
formerly a San Franciscan architect, designed the artistic 
rustic effects and the pretty log paling, which was not 
finished when this picture was taken. The seats over- 
looking the parade grounds are roomy, the first to be built. 
Probably the second Division will have then everywhere, 



136 THE NINETY-FIRST 

but it was Mother Earth's lap for the boys of the first. 
There were not even seats for company. This club house 
is furnished prettily with comfortable chairs — that was 
always especially mentioned about a place in your day, 
wasn't it? Curtains, too, though quite a number of build- 
ings boasted them before you left. When you come back 
home, you will forever hold a diffe>^ent opinion of curtains 
which you often, and sometimes disagreeably, expressed 
before you went to camp. To return to this club-house, it 
has a piano, a croquet ground and tennis courts, grass and 
flowers and — everything. Col. Davison took a lively in- 
terest in this accession, as he always does, and was "the 
first to chip in, and liberally, as usual." He was glad to 
have the Brigade own their individual baseball field — one 
thing about Camp Lewis, there is no lack of room, — and 
when it was opened he pitched the first ball with an ease 
that suggested he could pitch a good game. In fact, the 
spirit of Col. Davison has all along been what has per- 
meated the Depot Brigade, so quickly transforming "rook- 
ies" into soldiers. 

Realizing what team work a newspaper effects, the 
Colonel was also interested in the call of "The Bugle" to 
15,000 men in the Brigade when first it sounded, a month 
before the 91st Division went out You know the 363rd 
took Over the Top with them. The editors are principally 
newspaper men, in the world, under charge of Lieut. M. 
H. Compton of Post Exchange No. 13 and G. W. Moon, 
managing editor. That the paper will be bright and cover 
the ground, not only of the Depot Brigade but of Camp 
Lewis at large, goes without saying if you recognize the 
editors' names. The first marriage announcement, in the 
first Bugle, should as a matter of history, be noted. Private 
C. W. Foster of 19th Company to Miss Mary Spencer. 

Lotteries are now strictly against the law ; "The Bugle" 
exposes an infringement: 

Uyicle Sam had a lottery, 

To go and fight the Hun. 
The numbers went to Americans, 

Who were over twenty-one — 



CAMP LEWIS 



137 



Not to Frank Beck, however, v/ho^e recital of his ef- 
forts to break into the ranks before his number was 
reached, is as funny as his cartoons. He was born in Ta- 
coma. His father was one of the five original settlers of 
the town, built the first sawmill, and lives in Tacoma yet. 
Frank, having been graduated from Stadium High School, 
elected to become a cartoonist. Without the slightest train- 
ing, he decided to apply at the first of two great papers 
which then stood for his goal. He went to Chicago and 




1 






^^^^^^^^^^^-^^^^^^ 



A few of the "Old Timers," who have been made corporals and 
sergeants watching the new draft arrivals, and remarking tliat "they 
ain't getting the material they used ter when they entered the service 
back in 1917." 



to the Tribune, asked to be taken on as cartoonist, unaware 
that such a thing is neve?' done, and was immediately put 
to work. He remained until ready to go to the New York 
Tribune, where positions are only obtained by previous 
inheritance, and was at once engaged When the canton- 
ments were builded and occupied. Beck was sent to every 



138 THE NINETY-FIRST 

one in turn to translate their characteristics into cartoons. 
Saving the best to the last, he came to Camp Lewis, hoping 
here to enter the army. When he first mentioned his de- 
sire to Gen. Crowder, he said that could be easily managed, 
he would give a letter. One after another of the officers 
Beck met at succeeding cantonments made the same re- 
mark, offered the same courtesy, with the same lack of 
result, until he strove to look grateful and appreciative, or 
even intelligent. Accumulating official correspondence 
upon the subject caused him expense for excess baggage, 
he insists, and, still waiting, if another officer wishes to 
consult earlier memoranda upon the subject he sends it 
by motorized truck. Meanwhile, awaiting the lucky turn 
of Uncle Sam's lottery wheel. Beck draws cartoons instead 
of draft numbers. Wonder if he does break into the 91st 
at Camp Lewis? 

Another man who made several attempts to enlist and 
was as often refused, only to be finally drafted — which is 
"another of those things no fellow can find out," is Theo. 
Karle, he of the golden voice. He wanted to fight, he was 
noted as a footballist before attaining fame as a tenor. 
His name was Theodore Carl Johnson when he came first 
into the Tacoma Stadium with his team from Seattle Lin- 
coln High. He had already made the name Theo Karle 
famous when last he appeared there as soloist at a song 
festival. So, thinking the army would have none of him, 
Karle signed for two full years of concertizing, and then. 
Draft Number — , and he was ordered to Camp Lewis 
where he is assistant in Depot Brigade Library. Karle 
is generous with the beautiful voice which was bringing 
him a fortune, and has several times sung for Chaplain 
Fisher's meetings. His singing of "My Little Mother" on 
Mother's Day did as much for men as the sermon. He 
had sung with Farrar, Homer, Hemphil, Cluck and others, 
now he sings for his countrymen Karle was born just 
as far from one side of Camp Lewis as Beck from the 
other, jit Olympia, where his people still live. 

Surely everything in the animal kingdom, including 
a snake, has served as mascot at Camp Lewis. The 39th 



CAMP LEWIS 139 

Depot Brigade has taken to the air for theirs, though avia- 
tion is not yet attached. To see their crow sitting upon a 
man's shoulder as he walks about Barracks or perched 
upon his knee when he goes to town in the bus, tethered 
in no manner, is odd. This crow shows no anxiety as to 
"what shall we do for grub to ate", for the mascot would 
die of over-eating were it not he is a crow, which, as every 
one knows, eats his size every day. 

There will always be more or less jealousy in organiza- 
tions, of course, but it is true that the Depot Brigade feels 
itself, in general, above a mascot, having, as one expressed 
it, a mascot in its Commander. The officers felt that he 
had meant so much to them and their work that a very 
beautiful reception and dance were tendered Col. Davison 
and his wife in the ball room of Elks' Temple, Tacoma. 
With them, Maj. Gen. Greene and wife. Col. and Mrs. 
Hyer, .md Col. Davison's Aids, Capt. Smith and Lieut. 
Ives, received the guests. During the affair, orderlies bore 
in great masses of beautiful corsage bouquets for the 
ladies and engraved silver pins wherewith to fasten them, 
pretty souvenirs of a delightful occasion. This was the 
last large affair before the Division went out, but the 
Depot Brigade enjoyed many a farewell fest and jest as 
the long trains began to load. The new draft are coming 
in, the old going out — 

Hail and Farewell. 



140 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER IX. 

soldiers' singing and ROBERT LLOYD, FIRST ARMY SONG 
DIRECTOR IN THE WORLD — TWO AMERICAN WOMEN'S WAR 
SONGS — LARGEST CHORUS EVER HEARD, AT CAMP LEWIS — 
THE CHRISTMAS CONCERT — A FERRARA SWORD — MUSIC'S 
SLANG, JAZZ. 

Strange, is it not, that while all nationalities which 
have come hither to form the composite which is America 
have been singing peoples, we are a people who do not 
sing. To Italians song is meat and drink, or macaroni and 
wine, until they adopt suspenders or corsets, then even 
they are mute and pay their money to hear professionals; 
for in this country Caruso sings for a fortune, and little 
Tommy Tupper sings for his supper, but no one sings for 
love. Once upon a time, alone, happy and young, a girl 
sang at her sewing, a man whistled at his work. Even 
that has ceased. We used to sing in church, but the paid 
quartet, the trained chorus, the boy choir, attend to all 
that now. Even in the fervor of a reawakened patriotism, 
our efforts toward mass singing have been crowned with 
a painful success, as characteristic, say foreigners, as the 
hailing words of our national hymn, "Oh say". Except 
for their jokes, which were not understood by the Allies, 
our first army in France was a silent one; but no one 
denies that this youngest of nations shows itself as teach- 
able as a little child, and the next will take the field with 
a rousing song accented by the staccato of the machine 
guns, will travel the weary miles upon rollicking measures 
— it is easier to roll than to drag: even the War Depart- 
ment came to see that. 

In this far W^est, in the city of St. Francis, a merry- 
eyed, ruddy-faced young man of fifty-odd saw it plainly. 



CAMP LEWIS 



141 



His big baritone had furthered him in life; for thirty 
years he had sung, taught, composed, conducted; but what 
is the good of a ten-thousand dollar income when you can 
not do what you want? Because, perhaps, of his gray 
hair, the government got it into their heads that he was 




ROBERT LLOYD, FIRST ARMY SONG DIRECTOR 



old, and refused him enlistment. He admit* that he then 
planned to dye his lying hair, fell a soldier about his size 
some dark night, strip off his uniform, leaving his own 
civilian garb beside the prostrate form, and break into the 
ranks ; but the plan presented certain difficulties. He then 
took account of stock, Demand and Supply. Wanted, by 
the War Department, Song Leaders : Supply, himself, half 



142 THE NINETY-FIRST 

a dozen in one. So now you know what he considers The 
two important things about Robert Lloyd, that he wears 
the olive-drab, and that he was the First Song Leader in 
the American Army, or, indeed, in any other. Though 
born in England and with the superfluous L which spells 
Wales folk, he has lived thirty-five years in this country 
and is, he insists, Californian to the core, and as he re- 
marks, pioneering is indigenous to California. He was ap- 
pointed by Lee F. Hanmer, Head of Music upon Training 
Camp Activities Commission. One month after we were 
in the war, Lloyd was in the army, but he did not re- 
ceive the coveted uniform till he came to Camp Lewis — 
his chest measure is two inches more in olive-drab than 
in dress suit. Beginning at Fort Niagara, he trained the 
first and second Officers Schools and one at Plattsburg, 
then as the idea grew, was ordered to Camps Mills and 
Merritt, at last to Camp Lewis, where it is hoped he is a 
fixture. 

Listening to two-thousand or more men rehearse is 
novel and inspiring, at least one begins by listening, but 
forgets he is not in khaki and shouts "Good morning Mr. 
Zipp, Zipp, Zipp" with the rest. Mr. Lloyd keeps to the 
platform, to be sure, but he seems to walk right 'specially 
up to you. His sole instrument is a pitch pipe. He will 
teach three new songs in half an hour, word and tune. 
He sings a line as the percentor did in Colonial times 
when they really had congregational singing, and then 
leads the men in repeating it, his voice sounding clearly 
out from them all. A man, who like myself had slipped 
into Liberty Theater, said he had never carried a tune in 
his life, not even Yankee Doodle, but he had actually 
learned a song that morning. Although I was a stranger, 
sympathy is written in my face, so he triumphantly re- 
ported the same and went out humming it. That sympathy 
is now extended to his family. He will sing it in season 
and out of season, that tune, and hum it in his dreams. 

Lloyd has already taught marching songs to 175,000 
soldiers. 

"At first I joined men on their hikes, after rifle fire 
at the pits, anywhere I could sneak five minutes; now it's 



CAMP LEWIS 143 

a part of a soldier's routine. By Gen. Greene's order all 
will sing for forty-five minutes daily." 

The rehearsals used to be in Liberty Theater or the Y- 
Auditorium mornings, nowadays they are held on the 
parade ground with other drills, he passing from one regi- 
ment to another. Once a week he directs the Base Hos- 
pital Nurses, teaching them the same songs. Afternoons 
he leads officers and gives lectures upon placing and carry- 
ing tone, enabling them to call orders in a wind, day after 
day, without cutting furrows in their throats. He was 
invited to give this course at West Point, but the cadets 
were quarantined when he was free. He plans to give 
it to the public schools after the war. Robert Lloyd has 
made his pile; he will give. Evenings, he "tips off trench 
songs at smokers" — rather a strenuous life to a man too 
old to enlist, eh? He works harder than ever before but 
it is more fun and nearer fighting. It is his Such — "Do 
you know what I said when I tackled those rookies? I 
said, Noiv Father, this is up to you: put it over, and He 
did, didn't he?" 

Yes, a singing regiment marches further than a silent 
one. Lloyd says they come in from a sixteen-mile hike 
burdened with equipment, the sweat irrigating the dust 
on their faces, singing. Mr. Lloyd is even ouilding up the 
health of the camp, for the benefit of singing to persons 
predisposed to tuberculosis has long been known. Physic- 
ians prescribe vocal lessons to develop the lungs. What 
is not generally known is that singing hastens recovery 
from illness, physically as well as spiritually. Long ago, 
Indian convalescents were required to sing several hours 
daily. By the way, I said Americans are not a singing 
people: American- Americans are, that is, Indians. Their 
whole lives long, every experience was expressed in songs 
of their own making, needing, among Indians, no other 
copyright. This wealth of material is being mined by such 
fine composers as Charles Wakefield Cadman. I espec- 
ially recall an exquisite song embodying ideas which New 
Thought would claim its own. Watching and waiting at 
home, as ever women must, they project their loving en- 



144 THE NINETY-FIRST 

couragement to the far-off warriors, not forgetting the 
hunters and those menials who build the fires, nor even 
the boys who brave the dangers of a war party carrying 
new moccasins to replace those wornout upon the forays, 
"I send my thoughts to you". No note of fear nor sadness, 
warriors are to realize that their loved ones are strength- 
ening their hearts for endurance, their arms for battle. 

"Ho, ye warriors on the warpath, 

Lonely camping in a land of strayigers; 
Ho, ye hunters, ye moccasin carriers. 

Ye who build the fires. 
All ye who have gone forth — 

Lest your hearts know fear in darkness 
Through the ghostly chill of midnight, 

I send my thoughts to you: 
Lest your arrows fall in battle, 

Through the tender light of morning 
I send my thoughts to you." 

Ho Ye Warriors and The Battle Hymn of the Republic 
were both composed by women of our own land. The first 
song was born long ago in the heart of an Indian, gather- 
ing its notes as it came from her dusky lips and mem- 
orized by the women of her tribe as she sang it to them. 
The weird air is as haunting as the words, and Cadman 
has harmonized it understandingly, adding his own spirit 
to both. Are we to have no other songs like these for this 
war of wars? 

Arrived in the draft for the next Division at Camp 
Lewis, the very day this was written, several Sioux from 
South Dakota, the first of that redoubtable tribe to be re- 
ceived there. It was a Sioux who composed Ho Ye War- 
riors, and it was sung in the open by voices in unison, as 
all Indian songs are. 

I said Robert Lloyd was half a dozen directors in one. 
At that wonderful Depot Brigade review in May, he led 
10,000 voices. When — in England, I think — 5000 were 
raised in chorus, there was a conductor for every thousand, 






CAMP LEWIS 145 

SO Song Leader Lloyd is ten in one, which reminds me 
that, as they are in unison, quite the effect of Indian sing- 
ing is obtained, sounding as if there were parts, tenor, 
baritone, bass, qualifying the tone. A chorus of 15,000 
will sing soon. 

Already the fame of Camp Lewis' singing has spread 
and many requests for its repertoire have come from other 
cantonments. Mr. Lloyd has never sung anything but the 
best, classical or modern. Any musician will understand 
that it is part of his sacrifice to give over his beautiful 
voice to that which takes best with the soldiers, many 
songs of which he has himself composed, air and words. 
He has also arranged with a music publisher to obtain 
all the latest Broadway hits both for camp and for trench, 
Across. 

A "Y" man has recently joined the force, Hugo Kirch- 
ofer, who insists upon being called simply K, for despite 
his name, he does not side with the other K nor his Kultur 
He has had many years' experience, and will visit the Huts 
when large crowds gather to lead a short sing. Yes, we 
shall have a singing army. "K" left before the Division, 
and ''Everybody-Sing Lyons" took his place. 

The concert given at Tacoma Theater Christmas time, 
hardly comes under the subject as, though all wore uni- 
form, they numbered but one hundred, selected from the 
thousands, and were trained singers, many, noted soloists, 
before entering camp. One, for instance, Sergt. Kent, 
leader of three-hundred Boy Scouts in Salt Lake City, was 
soloist of the Latter Day Saints College Glee Club. An- 
other sergeant from the same city, L. G. Stookey, was 
soloist at the Mormon Tabernacle and of the "U" of Utah 
Glee. Another Temple soloist was Corp. Beek. A notable 
quartet sang The Warrior Bold, — Kent, Kingsbury, Beebe, 
and Broomell. Sergt. Harold Broomell, baritone, went 
East with the Stanford Glee Club. Glee club soloists were 
many in this chorus: beside the above, Atwater of Dart- 
mouth, Rankin of the Wesleyan (Kansas), Morse of the 
U. of California, Snow of Valparaiso (Indiana) Univer- 
sity, Harry Earle of College of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Hol- 

§ 11 



146 THE NINETY-FIRST 

lowell of Oregon Agricultural College and Apollo Club, 
Portland. All these were sergeants then, but are likely 
captains by now. Soloists for this fine concert were Lieut. 
Wilfred Lewis, whose baritone has been often enjoyed 
since, Serg. Perry, whose deep bass was popular at Panama 
Exposition, and who, like "Caruso" Guiseppe Bondonno 
had intended to enter Grand Opera instead of the Grand 
Army. All of them have been most generous with their 
voices at camp, and in churches and clubs of neighboring 
cities. Frederick Hart, accompanist, was a joy. Sher- 
rard artistically played part of the accompaniments. The 
choruses were fine and appropriate : The Soldier's Prayer, 
The Recessional, The Sword of Ferrara, which reminds 
me that in a Tacoma home, envied by many a ranking 
officer of the army, is a genuine Ferrara claymore, or two- 
edged sword, with a basket hilt, owned by John Christie 
Barr, a Civil War Naval Officer. Something over four 
centuries ago, a Scottish King offered a great prize at a 
tournament to the armorer who would bring to the next 
joust, the finest sword fashioned within his dominions. A 
Spaniard, Ferrara, resident in Scotland, came late to the 
next tournament, seemingly without a weapon, whereupon 
the king demanded the reason for the slight. Then did 
Ferrara remove his "bonnet" and showed a blade wound 
about his head. This sword fought at Culloden, just as 
the song relates. It has belonged to the oldest of the 
Barr's the centuries through. 

"I saw a Ferrara at Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott's, 
but I did not know that there was a signed Ferrara Clay- 
more in this country", said Brig. Gen. Foltz, adding that 
every basket hilt was wrought in special design for each 
clan. Curiously, even as he spoke of Scott, Thomas Mc- 
Millan, second-cousin of the famous author, entered his 
home across the street. 

As for instrumental music, from regimental bands to 
groups in each company, there is no dearth of good music 
nor of "jazz." The name simply grew on it. Jazz is the 
slang of Music. Shall never forget a jazz band play- 
ing for a dance in Knights of Columbus Auditorium. One 



CAMP LEWIS 



147 



man played bass drum and snare, cymbals, Indian Tom- 
tom, sleighbells, occasionally knocking a ball on a wire 
against a small frying-pan, two-egg size, with his knee. 
He and the violinist marked time in the melee by chewing 
gum, and the pianist smoked cigarettes, the mouths of the 
"brasses" being otherwise engaged. 




AND T«E Busy BUMBLE e>££- 
HUM» -AWAY SO HAepil.-6-E-f _,'' 






3.^^- -^^-^— ^m— ZM — , ^M 



One could write a volume upon music and musicians at 
Camp Lewis. For every regiment a quartet has been 
formed. 

Except for the professionals, such constant op- 
portunities for hearing good music free have come to few. 
Of them all, and of several composers at Camp Lewis, 
surely there will come their own sturdy Marching Song of 
the Ninety First! 



148 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER X. 

LIBERTY LIBRARY AND PROF. RUBY — LIBRARIAN JENNINGS' 
BUILDING — LIBRARIAN KAISER'S BEGINNING — SPECIAL 
GIFTS — WIDE VARIETY OF LITERATURE SHELVED AND UN- 
SHELVED — BOOKS ABOARD SHIP — RUBY'S PROGRESSIVE 
SERVICE. 

Music, Books: Cradle song and mother tongue of the 
hermit secluded in every soul — so when graduates aspired 
to other degrees, and undergrad's entered our National 
Army War University, libraries must perforce be built and 
stored. The American Library Association campaigned in 
September and raised over a million dollars. Camp Lewis 
Library was first completed and supplied and is largest 
and best upon cantonments — "You say everything is first 
and best and largest and" — you can find proof of every- 
thing so designated. In this case it is furnished by that 
ranking authority, the Librarian of Congress, Dr. Herbert 
Putnam, who lately devoted himself to cantonment librar- 
ies, finishing an inspection tour of them all, in May, at 
Camp Lewis. He must have been more than satisfied with 
the Library there, its work, works and workings, for he 
appointed its librarian, E. E. Ruby, organizer and super- 
visor of the twelve coast libraries at all posts and forts 
North of the Columbia, quite a compliment, or rather 
endorsement, for, as a technically trained librarian he is 
a diamond in the rough, though a Ruby polished by books, 
a professor at Whitman College, loaned because he longed 
to do something for the war ; and he has done it. Dr. Put- 
nam requested him to prepare a bulletin upon this Camp 
Lewis Library, illustrated, to be presented at the Ameri- 
can Library Association at Saratoga in July. 



CAMP LEWIS 



149 



J. T. Jennings of the Seattle Public Library came to 
Camp Lewis to organize one and could not at first find 
even the contract for it. When discovered, he showed it 
to General Greene, who designated the location between 
Theater and Hostess House, and to Constructing Quarter- 
master Stone, who ordered it built; but no lumber could 




E. B. RUBY, LIBRARIAN LIBERTY LIBRARY 



be delivered for two or three weeks. However, both Gen- 
eral and Constructor were interested, and permission was 
given to use government lumber, to be replaced when 
Library material arrived. Building, from blue prints only, 
began the next morning. Specifications arrived just be- 
fore the building was finished, better, in some respects, 
said Mr. Jennings, than provided for in them. 



150 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Next it was learned that coals had not been shipped 
to Newcastle. In other words shelving and furniture, 
ordered from the East, were not ready, so the order was 
placed where the fir grows, and both were soon finished 
and stained with one coat of gray through which the slash 
shows like fuming. 

Meanwhile, thousands of books from all over the North- 
west were being donated. In Tacoma, books and maga- 
zines were gathered which anticipated their housing at 
Camp Lewis, being sent to the National Guard camp at 
Murray, named for the General who had been another to 
recommend the site. These books and magazines were 
handled by the Y. M. C. A. The First Y tent at Camp 
Lewis had some, and when Y-hut No. 1 was built, a further 
gift of seven-hundred-fifty volumes stood upon its shelves. 
All these were donated in Tacoma and sent to the Public 
Library where John B. Kaiser, its scholarly Librarian, took 
keen interest in the project. By the time Liberty Library 
was opened, six-thousand volumes, gift of Tacomans alone, 
and catalogued at their Library, were ready. Thousands 
more were at the building, and twenty-six trained library 
workers from Seattle and Tacoma volunteered to assist Mr. 
Jennings in bringing order out of chaos. 

Liberty Library, Camp Lewis, opened its doors Novem- 
ber 28. Within and without the wood is stained gray, 
field stones by thousands have been piled and sloped back 
against its foundation of wood with unique effect. The 
walls of pale yellow beaver board, windows hung with 
yellow cotton crepe, Japanese tubs, gray, with their heavy 
twists black and orange, filled with sword ferns, soldiers' 
own, at intervals atop the bookcases, and now, a large 
fireplace in the reading room opposite the entrance, all 
make the long hall home-y. Even the doorway invited you 
in, for books are arranged against the panes around it, 
an archway of beckoning thoughts and fancies seen from 
without. There is, too, a friendly, welcoming atmosphere 
which most libraries lack. The comfortable chairs and 
the tables are stained gray. A few good mottoes are to 
be added later. Aye,Good Books Are Good Friends. 



CAMP LEWIS 151 

At first, fiction largely predominated. Many beauti- 
fully bound entire sets of standard works were presented, 
notably by Walter MacKay, from his private library in 
Portland, who added, making the gift more personal, a 
bookplate inscribing them "To the Soldiers of the U. S. A." 
Of his are a fine Balzac in 51 volumes, Thackeray, Waverly 
and others, all in handsome leather binding. Marcus 
Priteca of Tacoma gave fine sets, including one of Smollett ; 
Blanche Jane Cole of Seattle — it is hardly fair to mention 
few among so many. Paul Holbrook of Raymond, Wash- 
ington, contributed many sets including Dickens and Kip- 
ling, the latter is a great favorite in the army, since he 
deals with men in the open, as they are — and James Whit- 
combe Riley, for he writes of home things, especially dear 
now that men look back upon them; and Hope, for they 
are boyish, liking romantic adventure they, all, are Hope; 
and Doyle, for they enjoy detective stories. Most of the 
books sent were desirable, but there were a few donated, 
of course, that recall Father's aphorism, "If the Lord didn't 
provide a man with sense, He won't blame him for not 
using any." 

Books still arrive, gifts. Strangers visiting Camp 
Lewis generally drop into the Library and in memory of 
the visit many a volume is mailed back to it. When Maude 
Adams played at Liberty Theater she was interested, as 
a set of over forty beautiful and unusual books attest. 
It is pleasant to feel that in some way even passerby may 
have part in the work of the cantonment. In June the 
Library at Camp Lewis numbered 50,000 volumes. You 
should hear the exclamations of Civil War veterans who 
are "doing the camp." Not a book was furnished them; 
they would have devoured a cook book like the mocking 
goodies it suggested. 

Books are purchased as need arises from the fund of 
the American Library Association. Mr. Ruby ordered 
five hundred dollars' worth of technical reference books at 
Christmas, as many more later, and a third order has 
been placed. There are whole sections devoted to science, 
sociology, history, travel, and to purely technical works, 



152 THE NINETY-FIRST 

which are in great demand. Officers spend much time 
furthering- their studies toward promotion, and enlisted 
men often pursue favorite subjects, for remember this is 
a National Army and we are a nation of readers, especially 
in this Northwest, where the contributing states to draft 
for Camp Lewis rank lowest in the entire Country in il- 
literacy. Some soldiers are already planning for what 
they will do after the war, or in improving their trades 
or farms : the Library has over two-hundred periodicals, 
upon almost every subject. The Seattle Public Library has 
furnished, beside, five-hundred volumes of twelve leading 
magazines for five years back. 

Aeronautics is popular, tests being afforded, at Base 
Hospital, those who wish to enter Aviation service. En- 
gineering of all kinds is another favorite subject, for in 
this war, as in no other, knowledge is power. Soldiers 
soon understand this so that the fifteen copies of Moss' 
Manual of Military training are always out. Prof. Ruby 
says the Library will soon have a complete department of 
technical Military books. Many privates are not only 
graduates from, but professors in our best universities. 
Librarian Ruby smiles as he recalls a private who asked 
for something on electric motors. Shown the Library's 
best, he remarked casually, "Oh, I made the drawings for 
that, I want a later book," and it was immediately found 
and purchased. The institution is weak in Sociology and 
Religion, both of which, oddly, are in demand and will be 
supplied. 

Increasing numbers find the quiet, beauty, and atmo- 
sphere of this Library a very haven. Men scattered at 
the tables are reading everything from hydrostatics and 
electricity, to ancient architecture and history of France 
and Belgium; from Shakespeare to Empey's "Over the 
Top" of which there are forty copies and never one on 
the shelf. Speaking of war books, one of the most delight- 
ful of them all, one that you do not read, but hear, every 
accent of whose genuine, boyish, stirring words comes 
straight to you, yourself, is "Life and Letters of Harry 
Butters". Such a wearisome title, the "Life" of a boy; 



CAMP LEWIS 




154 THE NINETY-FIRST 

beside, other people's letters are generally as stupid as 
others' dreams in the telling; and, — by the way, who was 
Harry Butters? You forget all this with the book in your 
hand. His sister Mrs. R. A. Bray of Piedmont, California, 
has ordered a thousand copies sent to the various canton- 
ments as Harry's part in our war, for he died in action in 
France before his country entered it. 

Camp Lewis Library, which has twice the number of 
books of any other cantonment, is well stocked with those 
which everybody is supposed to have read and nobody has 
read, and some are taking this opportunity to browse 
among them. Even men who have never cared for books 
read now, and those who have loved them and lacked time, 
have two full days a week and all their evenings quite free 
to use as they please. Who else can boast as much time 
as that? College boys make much greater progress at 
Camp Lewis than at a "U", for they choose their own 
books and read with definite purpose. There is a large 
and growing department of French and Spanish books, 
for both languages are very popular in the teaching at 
the Y-huts, the former for present use, Spanish for the 
future when the United States will fall heir to South 
American trade. Regular readers at the Library in- 
creased so greatly that it was found necessary to build an 
addition. It has a large fireplace and soft lights, which 
suggests a large factor, and an odd one at first thought, 
in the success of Camp Lewis, brilliant and constant elec- 
tric light, turned on early through the rainy months, so 
that the somber twilight did not make men homesick. 
Only women enjoy twilight. 

Mr. Ruby has established twenty-six branch libraries, 
at Depot Brigade, the Remount Station, Base Hospital, 
Y-Huts, Officers' Training School, the Jewish Club, 
etc. He hopes soon to have them in all companies as 
well as regiments. His idea is a good one in efl'ecting the 
exchanges. A strong box with two shelves filled with 
selected books is sent to barracks. Upon a set day, an 
orderly takes this to the next company and one is brought 
from another to replace it. In this way, the main library 



CAMP LEWIS 



155 



force is small and results large. Red tape has been cut at 
both ends. The library has the air of a private one where 
the owner enjoys himself, which largely accounts for its 
success. All the Library workers bear out this idea of 
friendly helpfulness. Louis Castle was assistant in Seattle 
Public Library; Leo Etzkorn in Whitman College library 
while a student, Albert R. Rowell after graduating from 




PERIODICAL READING ROOM, LIBERTY LIBRARY 

Berkeley was assistant in the University Law Library 
there; Ellen Garfield Smith, graduate of University of Il- 
linois and assistant in the John Crerar Library, Chicago, 
is now of the Walla Walla Public Library and donated by 
it to the Camp Lewis for two months to catalogue. Mrs. 
Ida Kidder, Librarian of Oregon Agricultural College, has 
been loaned for two months to Base Hospital Library, 
where she is doing a beautiful work in reading to patients. 
She is a graduate of the Library School of the University 
of Illinois. The men are all, for reason, ineligible to war 
service. When Dr. Putnam was at Camp Lewis and neigh- 
boring cities, he gave out much of interest concerning the 
wide scope of library work in the army and its growing 



156 THE NINETY-FIRST 

importance. It was fortunate that a man holding his 
position was willing to resign it, even for a time, to enter 
this work. The Library Association for war service now 
has four-hundred-fifty stations, in army and navy camps, 
along the Mexican border, and overseas. Space aboardship 
has been arranged for, and fifteen thousand books a 
month go to France. Y. M. C. A. secretaries are always 
aboard transports and have authority to open cases and 
loan books to troops at sea. Cases are repacked before 
landing and forwarded to the war zone. 

The American Library Association for War Service is 
sending out a call for Baedeker's guide books to Europe, 
which are not now to be bought in this country. 
They are in great demand on every transport. People 
everywhere will doubtless respond generously, but it is 
not to be denied that to those who have made but one trip 
to Europe and have no hope of another, the gift of the 
book which accompanied every mile and day, and holds 
more memories than pages, will be a real sacrifice. 

All cantonment Libraries are not even yet built. The 
association has been using Red Cross buildings, Y's, K. 
C's, Salvation Army quarters, but its work has co-ordinat- 
ed so successfully with military efforts, that structures 
will be everywhere hurried. Not only is the Carnegie fund 
available, but some people are turning over their own 
collections as their families are breaking up. Books 
not desirable are sold, and others, requested by the soldiers, 
purchased from lists forwarded by post librarians. 

Throughout this brief account of a great work, it 
was unnecessary to point out compensations, they speak 
for themselves. No wonder that many educated people 
have said, "I'd rather have a boy of mine at Camp Lewis 
for a year than at any University, bar none. He would 
acquire and digest more real knowledge, be a bigger man." 



CAMP LEWIS 157 



CHAPTER XL 

LIBERTY THEATER AND MANAGER BRADEN — NOTABLE PER- 
FORMANCES — THE NINETY-FIRST'S SWAN-SONG. 

When the War Department announced that a theater 
would be built in every camp, some raised their eyebrows, 
some their voices. Not that in this Republic there re- 
mains a lance corporal's guard who consider a theater the 
foyer of Hell and all that sort of thing, "but", they mut- 
tered, "song, dance, mollycoddling!" However, they were 
neither enlisted men nor their Home People. 

It sounds more armyfied to term the worst and most 
contagious ailment that attacks soldiers, one that quaran- 
tine only spreads, nostalgia, but call it that or just plain 
homesickness, even our wonderful medical corps confess 
they have found no cure for it. Like other maladies, it 
increases toward evening, especially in damp weather. 
While drilling, men do not seem to feel the pain which 
becomes all but unbearable after Retreat; so for months 
they rushed off to town, spent more money than they 
could afford upon vaudeville and plays, fare there and 
back, lodgings and meals. Sometimes they returned late 
to camp, sometimes not at all, deserting not from coward- 
ice but homesickness. So when Liberty Theater opened 
February 15, 1918, it proved a medicine for many ills. 
Its manager, E. A. Braden, should sign D. D. after his 
name. No; Division Doctor, though really some Doctors 
of Divinity accomplish less good. 

Again fortunate. Camp Lewis, in having this man in 
charge of a branch of service so important. Tall, strong, 
soldierly, he greatly desired active service at the Front, 
which he had five times visited since war broke out; but 
the Government held that he could best serve by giving 



158 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



I 




CAPT 



, BRADKN. MANAGER OF 



LIBERTY THEATRE 



CAMP LEWIS 159 

his many years' experience among leading producers of 
New York city to the management of a theater which 
must be up to date for an up to date army. As Braden 
said, anything to have a part in the greatest tragedy ever 
staged, so, a continent away from the Rialto and all it 
means, from Tammany and other leading clubs in which 
he had long been a familiar figure, the "Colonel" by brevet 
on Broadway for so many years, demoted himself to 
Captain, and betook himself to Camp Lewis. 

From without, Liberty Theater is a huge barn in ap- 
pearance, but in essentials it is the equal of any on Broad- 
way. Its acoustic properties are excellent. It can be 
emptied in short order from several exits on three sides 
when every one of its nearly three-thousand seats is oc- 
cupied, for a broad aisle extending its length is crossed 
by another as wide, and from every seat the stage can be 
seen. In the center is the Commandant's box, sometimes 
called a stall, and in this case resembling both. An artis- 
tic rest room in brown and green is one of the few on the 
cantonment. 

Stage dressing rooms are large and airy. A spur track 
allows scenery to be unloaded level with a platform im- 
mediately adjoining the stage, where wide doors make the 
rear practically open. Companies step from their own 
Pullman to their dressing rooms without touching foot 
to the ground, and never was Broadway so broad as the 
sweep about this Playhouse, nor gateway more unique than 
Liberty Arch under which you drive up the asphalt road 
to Liberty Theater. Programs always have a picture of 
the arch upon the cover, and within, of Commandant and 
staff, with their names, so that the programs make souven- 
irs to be taken to all parts of the country by the thousands 
of visitors to Camp Lewis. 

Do not dream that because the aisles are uncarpeted, 
the seats pine benches, the cream walls unfrescoed, that 
you must make believe it is a fine theater. Its stage, front- 
age seventy-six feet, is equal to any production and fully 
equipped with fine scenery, set in the latest manner with 
sand-bag weights from a great height — making the rear 



160 THE NINETY-FIRST 

of the building resemble a brewery — and its dimmer-board 
has no equal, Col. Braden's word for it, in any metropoli- 
tan theater. Not know what a dimmer is? Why, the 
electric switchboard beside the stage, regulating all ef- 
fects of light and shade. 

Liberty Theater is perfectly ventilated, without drafts, 
from the top, and evenly heated. It can also be fumigated 
after a performance attended by quarantine Companies who 
are marched there in a body afternoons to see moving 
pictures, a reason-saving break in the confinement of some 
Commands, which have suffered merger quarantines until 
the whole Company were all but ready for commitment 
to Steilacoom. 

Another superiority in equipment is a seven-hundred 
dollar rotary converter which is excelled nowhere, because 
there is no better. That is why moving pictures there are 
so real. Pictures are run at all performances when plays, 
concerts, vaudeville, or regimental shows are not being 
staged. Col. Braden chooses nothing but clean films and 
the best, preceded by fine travel pictures, often showing 
beautiful castles, storied Guild Halls, magnificent cathed- 
rals which for centuries glorified Belgium and P'rance 
until German Kultur deliberately destroyed Art's heritage. 

There are also two nights a week of vaudeville given 
by a widely known circuit, which presented some fine 
things, including the great Bernhardt, and some things 
which were neither clever nor clean. 

Liberty Theater was opened in February, 1918, with 
a fine concert by Orpheus Male Chorus of Tacoma and 
Philharmonic Orchestra, Seattle. A speech was demanded 
of Brig. Gen. Foltz, Commanding, who responded in a few 
words and insisted Manager Braden should do the same, 
who, protesting that he would not, did. In this first 
speech of his life, he said what afterward proved true, 
that there would be such variety in productions that every 
man could enjoy what he most likes. 

Liberty Theater is usually packed. All cantonments 
have identical Playhouses, as to buildings, from plans 
prepared by experts, but Manager Braden has acquired 



CAMP LEWIS 161 

many interior equipments extra. His long acquaintance 
with theatricals has secured unusual attractions, so that 
the men of the 91st are most fortunate. Mischa Elman's 
Wizard playing even warmed himself into a human when 
the immense audience listened breathlessly, then applauded 
noisily. Maud Powell interspersed her delightful program 
and many encores with friendly words to the soldiers and 
witty comments, making the occasion a personal affair, 
merrily reassuring them that "Classical music is not so 
bad as it sounds". 

Melba came. Her wonderful voice must have lived 
on for this hour. Not only did the brilliant notes fall 
like diamonds from the necklace of the Jewel Song as in 
olden days, and the winged sounds float, light and color- 
ful as The Butterflies, but into the exquisite voice had 
crept the sweetness of The Time of Lilacs, of lilacs in the 
soft Spring rain when one is young. So Melba sang to 
three-thousand of you Ninety-First as never she sang, or 
could sing, in days of yore, for her voice had borne a soul. 
I had heard her many times in opera long ago, but I 
choose to remember Melba always from that night, gorge- 
ous in the golden gown with which she complimented 
beauty-starved soldiers singing for them over and over 
with all her heart and all her art. 

At last, Taps nearing, she stood with a furled flag in 
her hand and said — and there rang no "stage business" 
in the words : 

"I want to tell you how proud and happy we are to 
sing for you tonight, you brave American soldiers who are 
going over there. When you get there, just get your teeth 
in and carry it through to the finish. I have been in the 
thick of it for so long. We have sent our troops away, 
and many of them have come back with honor, while 
many of them will never come back at all, but the honor 
of serving their country to the very uttermost is theirs, 
and we are proud of them." 

She unfurled the Stars and Stripes and led the three 
cheers which will echo in Germany, then three more for 
our dauntless near neighbors, the Canadians. Then she 

§ 12 



162 THE NINETY-FIRST 

said "Now will you give three cheers for the Australians, 
my countrymen" — such Hurrahs! 

Then arose Gen. Greene in his box and said: 

"One moment, comrades, this glorious woman has 
cheered our troops and those of our neighbor and of her 
own country. She is devoting her time, her wonderful 
gifts and her whole soul to the aid of the allied caus^; 
even in her company on this tour she is carrying the 
widow of an officer who met his death at the Dardanelles, 
and two wounded men who have been incapacitated at 
the front. Now, will you join in three cheers for this 
gracious giver, this queen of song, this peerless woman, 
Madame Nellie Melba, and give them with a will." 

You never heard such a noise nor did you hear it then 
because every one of you was making it, and of course 
you were including in its meaning the pianist, Francis de 
Bourguignon, a Belgian artist who fought as brilliantly 
as he played, who still showed in his walk effects of his 
wound at Antwerp, and, in his tender music, the wound 
of his native land. 

Two days after this concert at Camp Lewis came news 
that Melba had been made "Dame Commander of the 
Order of the British Empire". 

It is so good to laugh, these war-saddened days, that 
I must remind you how you chuckled on your way to bar- 
racks that night. It was the first time that Commandant, 
Staff, and wives had come to Liberty Theater in state, so 
to speak. So when buglers sounded "The General", the 
rising was spasmodic. It was evidently a false alarm, 
too. The heralds didn't know how to order Be Seated in 
bugle, so after an awkward pause, they sounded "Boots 
and Saddles". Seems as if Recall or Retreat or even 
Fatigue call would have been more appropriate. 

The great audience rose, too, when Melba came upon 
the stage. Every performance at Liberty Theater is pre- 
ceded by "The Star Spangled Banner" when ushers in 
the aisles, people in the foyer, everyone stands at attention. 
Strange that it took war to educate Americans to a re- 



CAMP LEWIS 163 

spect invariably shown by other countries to their na- 
tional airs. 

Speaking of stage remarks, the soldiers have heard 
from several actors who, ordinarily, refuse to step out 
of character. Cyril Maude played Grumpy at Liberty 
Theater for the first time in the Northwest, and spoke to 
the boys, having one of his own, and his uncle, Genera] 
Maude, in British Service ; but Maude Adams — odd coin- 
cidence in names, Maude Adams, though she very gener- 
ously gave her beautiful play, to which a uniform was a 
ticket, on a Sunday afternoon because she had no other, 
breaking for the first time a stage-life rule of hers never 
to act on Sunday, absolutely refused to respond to the 
soldiers' appeals. Otis Skinner was another who played 
at Camp Lewis Sunday, his first experience since stardom. 

Speaking of tickets, Smileage books are received at 
Liberty Theater. What a thoroughly American idea and 
name! Washington's quota was 30,000 books, but 75,- 
000 were sold. These books of one or five dollars in cou- 
pons afforded some men their first opportunity and money 
to hear the best the stage aff'ords. To them it was a part, 
and a large part, of their education at Camp Lewis. 

Manager Braden chose experienced ticket sellers, ush- 
ers, scene-shifters, and as he is a strict disciplinarian, and 
they in military training, no theater is better served, and 
there are no strikes. The orchestra of thirty pieces is 
first class, several of the men having been soloists in not- 
able organizations. For over a year one of them led 
Billy Sunday's choir with his silver-voiced trombone. 

A curious condition, such a huge, crowded theater, 
such a manager, such a force, and not a man making a 
dollar! All profits go to the Division, Over There — except 
profits accruing in pleasure and morale — at Camp Lewis. 

The enlisted men connected with the theater, however, 
are a bit unfortunate, it would seem, for though they 
escape K. P. and much of drill, there is slight chance for 
distinguished service or advance in rank or pay. Also, 
they have no holidays wholly free, no extra pay, not even 
extra "chow", after performance, just rush to be in by 



164 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Taps. The insignia of the army musician is a silver harp 
which, under these circumstances, resembles that "which 
once from Tara's halls, hath all its music fled." 

Everybody else in the cantonment having- had some 
one to do for them, the player-folk at last will have, for 
the Stage Women's War Workers have requested every 
soldier who was in any way connected with the stage, if 
by nothing more than ushering, "before the war", to send 
his name to the Division Adjutant. Ex-actors and all will 
hereafter benefit by the generosity of their sisters in art. 

Again Camp Lewis scores, through Captain Braden, 
in its theater which, at the end of the first season, your 
occupancy of Camp Lewis,Ninety-First, finds itself the 
only Liberty Theater in all the cantonments that has made 
any money, or even paid expenses, which Manager 
Braden's has always done, while several have been for 
some time closed. This, on the contrary, has constantly 
improved its attractions and booked others. Your beauti- 
ful campsite has won fame through stageland, and play- 
ing there is an outing filled with sightseeing. You soldiers 
perform during the day and they reciprocate with their 
patriotic best for you at night. The knitting which the 
heroines introduce into every possible scene is for you. 
Usually they take dinner at Hostess House over which 
they exclaim, and they leave with pleasant memories of 
it all, to be envied by other companies. 

Several improvements have been made in the building, 
for which the Swan-song of the 91st Division will pay. 
June 16 and 17 your best talent appeared in minstrels and 
vaudeville. The former was as funny as any ever seen 
in old days when minstrels ruled, yet the only familiar 
word was "Be seated, gentlemen." The quartet really had 
four singing voices. Its lank bass stood as high as his 
full notes reached low, and he was spontaneously funny. 
Sutter yodled. Smith and Busby sang the latest songs, 
Lloyd sang personations while you audience, like a com- 
posite Oliver Twist, called for more, with Quaw at the 
piano playing into his hands, finally singing a new song 
of his own. Ray Hicks of the 364th gave his original 



CAMP LEWIS 165 

monologues. Camp Lewis owes this ex-professional much 
for he has been most generous, writing playlets and pro- 
ducing them. All should be mentioned, for all were 
clever. The orchestra, dressed in white, were grouped 
about the grand piano on the stage and led by Max Fisher 
who played several fine violin solos, one being that ap- 
pealing "Joan of Arc They Are Calling You." Fisher 
paid a graceful compliment to Ray Healey when he turned 
to the "black-face" and played the song upon strings which 
Healey had so exquisitely played upon his fingers. Healey's 
whistling was wonderful. Placing his interlocked fingers 
to his lips, as boys produce hideous catcalls, he whistled 
Joan of Arc with such beauty that its modulations seemed 
to form the words which the hearers supplied in their 
hearts, and some, in tears. The tones were as sweet as the 
violin's. Healey whistled a number of songs covering a 
surprising register, with lightness and elusive sweetness 
of tone, or with roundness and volume, shading with the 
feeling of the human voice, yet with the technique of a 
flageolet. It was both Pan and his pipes. 

But through all the nonsense, the song, the dance, crept 
in a breathless word, a faint note, a half movement which 
all steadfastly ignored: G'Oodbye, Remember; a phantom 
Handclasp, for already there were vacant seats, and all 
its Ninety-First audience would be gone hence within the 
fortnight. 'Twas the Lay of the Last Minstrel. 



166 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER XII. 

BRIG. GEN. FOLTZ, COMMANDING — FIRST NEW YEAR PROCLA- 
MATION — LINCOLN'S AND WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAYS — 
GAMBLING — FIRST GENERAL INSPECTION' — INSURANCE 
DRIVE — RESUMES COMMAND 182ND BRIGADE — WHAT AN 
INFANTRY BRIGADE IS — COL. CAVANAUGH OF THE 363RD 
— LT. COL. WARFIELD, MAJ. BRECKINRIDGE — "OVER THE 
TOP" — LIEUT. LAWTON'S SUN DIAL — CHAPLAIN GALVIN 
AND SOCCER — COL. WEEKS — CURIOUS STATUS OF CO. H. 
364th — A COSMOPOLITAN COMPANY — REGIMENTAL 
HONORS, BAYONETING — CHAPLAIN WILSON. 

Brigadier General Frederick S. Foltz, of a family long 
established in Pennsylvania, was graduated from West 
Point in the same class with Major-General Greene and 
Brigadier-General Irons. Curiously, all three have been 
acting as Commandants of Camp Lewis, When Gen. 
Greene went to France in November 1917, Irons was in 
command for a short time, succeeded by Foltz until Gen. 
Greene's return in March. Lieutenants Greene and Foltz 
were stationed together at the Northernmost fort, Assini- 
boine, for about three years three decades ago, the former 
Infantry, the latter Cavalry. Both engaged in the Sioux 
outbreak. Promotion was slow in those days, it was 
Second-Lieutenant Foltz for nineteen years, all in the 
First Cavalry, to which, long after, he returned as Colonel. 
His father was Surgeon-General J. M. Foltz, Fleet Sur- 
geon with Admiral Farragut in the Civil War, and Mrs. 
Foltz is also of army folk, daughter of Major J. B. Keefer. 

Foltz served upon Gen. Miles' staff in Cuba, saw the 
Stars and Stripes raised in both interventions, went with 
Miles to Porto Rico, and served two and a half years in 
the Philippines. Aside from foreign service, he has been 



CAMP LEWIS 



167 




BRIGADIER-GENERAL F. S. FOLTZ 



stationed in the West, understands its men, is just where 
he belongs in the only Western National Army Canton- 
ment. American Cavalry have always been noted riders. 
A team picked from the old regular army meant some- 



168 THE NINETY-FIRST 

thing. Gen Foltz has twice commanded such teams repre- 
senting the United States against the best horsemen of 
the Old World, once in London, and in the 1912 Olympic 
Games at Stockholm. It would seem such riders needed no 
further training yet they were ordered to France to acquire 
other style of riding. 

Gen. Foltz was at Fort Russell when ordered to Camp 
Lewis, August, 1917, to command a Brigade not yet blown 
in by the draft. He had been encamped at Murray eleven 
years ago, so this is old stamping grounds. As Cavalry 
has taken small part in this war, he commands an Infantry 
Brigade, the 182nd. 

Speaking of Cavalry, the last war glamour passed with 
"the horse that scenteth the battle from afar," However, 
there is talk of saddling him again. Surely the Hun will 
flee so fast that he will be required. So perhaps some of 
these Montana cowboys who ploughed the mud at his re- 
view will follow Brig. Gen. Foltz a-horseback. 

GENERAL BYNG USES HIS CAVALRY 

I've fought the Hun dismounted, yes, more often than I've counted; 

I've trotted with the Tommies in the line; 
But what of "Boots and Saddles," and the nag a trooper straddles — 

Must I always foot it eastward to the Rhine? 
I've strafed Fritz with a mortar, as a proper gunner oughter; 

Oh, I've knocked his blooming trench about his ears; 
But, say, I want a battle where the sabers flash and rattle. 

And I want to hear the calls a trooper hears. 
I've tooled a tank in action, and it has its own attraction. 

When its crawling on and blighting far and wide; 
But oh, I miss the swaying of a wild war stallion, neighing. 

As he takes the open country in his stride! 



What's that the bugle's saying? "Boots and Saddles!" Oh, I'm praying 

That they really mean to turn us loose again; 
It may be but rehearsing, and I'm praying and I'm cursing — 

No! it's "Hui'ry, hurry, hurry, hurry, men!" 
Old horse, you piebald beauty, this is mighty welcome duty! 

Do you hear this bit of steel stuft' whirr and sing? 
They say the Hun's retreating, but he needs another beating. 

And we're to do our very best for Biff Bang Byng! 
— O. C. A. Child. 



CAMP LEWIS 169 

Gen. Foltz had just taken over command of the can- 
tonment when its First New Year, 1918, dawned. In this 
message he wished — 

''A Happy New Year to the Division — May wo, while 
the year is young, take our place with our comrades on 
the front and before the year is out, may our zeal and 
worth have won a name for the 91st Division of the Na- 
tional Army." Fred'k S. Foltz, 

Brigadier General, Commanding. 

Zeal, worth, strong words, both. Zeal belongs to the 
last words in the language and to the first in success: 
eagerness, passionate ardor are its synonyms, and worth 
behind zeal to stand fast, to follow faster. 

Since so many Montanans belong to the 182nd Infantry 
Brigade, they will like to keep this message, too: 

To the Montana men at Camp Lewis I give greetings 
at the daum of a New Year, Be of good cheer, your country 
has supreme faith in you, and we of Montayia, ivho best 
knotv and, love you, rest confident in the belief that you 
will measure up to the responsibility that is yours. Wher- 
ever your task may take you, be sure that you are fol- 
Jfjwed by the love and admiration of the people "back 
home," ivho have solemnly dedicated themselves to make 
any sacrifice necessary to maintain you in the field. 

When you go "over the top" may you be inspired by the 
thought of the loved ones back in the proud, old state that 
sits the saddle of the Rockies, ayid I am sure the thought 
will put more power into your fighting arm and make you 
more determined to execute a thoroughly ivorkmanlike 
job. 

May the God of Battles, ivho is none the less the God 
of Peace, ivatch over you and keep you and give back to 
us as members of the glorious host ivhich carried the 
Stars ayid Stripes to victory. 

To all the men of Camp Lewis, without regard to state 
lines, I give a message of assurance. The hearts of our 
people are ivith you all, and ive knoiv that the indomitable 
will and the fervent patriotism of the men of the North- 



170 THE NINETY-FIRST 

tvest ivill give a splendid account of themselves ivhen the 
moment of supreme test arrives. 

(Signed), S. V. Stewart, 

Governor of Montana. 

* * :!: ******* 

The next remembrance of the cantonment under Gen. 
Foltz did not especially interest these Montanans ; but 
February 1, 1918 was notable for Mexicans, Southern 
Indians, some Californians, Hawaiians and Filipinos at 
Camp Lewis, for the first snow of the Winter was the 
first snow of their lives. They rushed out, breaking the 
stillness of the falling flakes, washed one another's faces 
quite as if they were down East boys, built a Kaiser, and 
rejoicing exceeding much, demolished him with snow 
grenades, — a Kaiser? Why the whole Hohenzollern family 
and connections were brought low that day, and lay, white 
and cold, mangled, but not bleeding, for they are all as 
cold-blooded as fish, which do not bleed. Democracy tri- 
umphed over autocracy, and even aristocracy was not. 
Officers, quick to catch the spirit of our army, gave the 
day for a Winter picnic, since snow hereabouts lasts no 
longer than joy. One wildly excited Filipino packed the 
snow all over him, held both hands full, and had his picture 
taken to send across the Pacific to prove the marvel of 
which he would write, and others followed his lead. Watch- 
ing the fun and the wonder, we of this rainy Puget Sound 
slipped back over the years and the miles to childhood, 
and New England, tingling with the old excitement of the 
first still, uncertain flakes. That's one dear beauty of 
Firsts, you go back; don't you love to? 

While Gen. Foltz was Commandant, there were several 
Firsts in anniversaries; Lincoln's birth, February 12, was 
especially fitting in remembrance of this greatest of men, 
born for such a time as this. The Revolutionary War had 
just ended with amazing victory to a handful of impover- 
ished, untrained, unequipped colonists over the greatest 
of countries; and Lincoln was three years old when 
England tried it again, with the same result, so that he 
was born with the feel of war, so to speak. He volunteered 



CAMP LEWIS 171 

for the Black Hawk, and he bore the crushing burden of 
the Civil War as no other ruler in all time has done. His 
whole life was a heart-breaking struggle. Like the Naza- 
rene he followed, Lincoln was " a man of sorrows, and 
acquainted with grief," and upon the altar wood of his 
patiently builded life was laid his cruel death for the last 
sacrifice. Now remain a few of that war to season this 
with the salt of the earth, and Lincoln's great spirit must 
have brooded over the cantonments where men listened, 
this war-year, with their hearts. They felt him near and 
intimate, this Great Commoner, who once remarked that 
the Lord must love common people. He made so many of 
them. Lincoln Himself marveled when elected President 
and said: "I carmot but know what you all kihow, that 
without a name, perhaps ivithout a reason why I should 
have a name, there has fallen upon me a task such as 
did not rest even upon the father of his country; and so 
feeling, I can7wt but turn and look for that support ivith- 
voiit which it will be impossible for me to perform that 
great task. I turn, then, and look to the great American 
people and to that God who has nerer forsaken them." 
His words sound clear today, — American people, never 
forsaken. 

Not one of the thousands who have entered Camp 
Lewis came into less auspicious birth ; neither is there 
among the indexed cards of the Depot Brigade, one more 
modest than his, the entire biography Lincoln furnished 
the Congressional Record wherein, generally, leaf after leaf 
rustled upon a fruitless family tree: 

B'orn, February 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Ky. 

Education, defective. 

Profession, a lawyer. 

Have been a captain of vohmteers in Black Hawk War. 

Postmaster in a very small office. 

Four times a member of the Illinois legislature, and 

A member of the Lower House of Congress." 

Is that not inspiring to you, volunteer captains of the 
Ninety-First? At thirty-eight, it was Lincoln's highest 
rank. "Education, defective." Think of the speech at 



172 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Gettysburg, scribbled upon stray scraps of paper as the 
train rumbled on, of Lincoln, soon to join "these honored 
dead" "who gave the last full measure of devotion" — that, 
however, is unthinkable, for Lincoln lives. In five intense 
minutes ; was delivered the noblest speech of dedication in 
any language, the Creed of America, ending in the death- 
less words 

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, 
shall not perish from the earth. 

Following a number of convictions in serious cases of 

stealing, embezzlement of Company funds, and even the 

attempted murder of an automobile driver by that strange 

degenerate, Pidd, all consequent upon losses by gambling. 

Commanding Officer Foltz issued a sweeping order against 

all forms of gambling, February 13, valid either within 

the cantonment or wherever soldiers gathered. Even the 

United States mails had been rifled, and investigation of 

many complaints traced the thefts to men who had lost 

at cards. With this order from Gen. Foltz was also one 

pertaining to a more careful distribution of mail, which 

greatly improved the service. Perhaps the twin order even 

stopped the betting on whether a package, or even a 

letter, would ever arrive. One officer insists that a pair 

of his shoes walked out in two weeks and a day, rather 

take chances in the mail to be too late to go out with the 

Division in June. All this had been rather the fault of 

company post-offices than of the camp postoffice, which 

really did well with a small force in ridiculously limited 

quarters, and an immense mail congested there, unless 

handled in extraordinarily short time. So that, really, 

there was need for unusual efficiency, and it was shown. 
********** 

During the incumbency of Foltz, the First General 
Inspection of the 91st Division was held in February, 1918 
when Brig. Gen. Helmick arrived from Washington D. C, 
an inspection highly creditable, but very dismal, you re- 
member. Never did young officers more fervently wish 
they were higher-ups, in both senses, than they who, pelted 



CAMP LEWIS 173 

by rain, afoot in the mire, followed the mounted officers. 
When ranks broke, the men dipped their sodden shoes 
into puddles to wash off the mud — "Better than digging 
off a firm foundation of adobe clay at Camp Fremont", 
cheered an optimist. 

In the week spent at Camp Lewis by Gen. Helmick, ac- 
companied by his old friend the Commanding Officer, he 
attended a sham battle across No Man's Land carried on 
by the School of Intelligence wherein the mortar trench 
barrage was directed by British officer Capt. Mawdsley; 
and the advance by the French Capt. Champion. This 
was the first large problem worked out in the department, 
before most of the camp officers. 

Another feature during Brig. Gen. Foltz' command of 
Camp Lewis was the Government Insurance Drive which 
placed the cantonment First in Percentage of Men In 
sured, 99.65 of 32,510 present early in February, as a 
telegram received by him stated. It stood second in the 
amount subscribed, too, though more effort had been made 
to have all benefit, than to urge subscribing to more than 
they could well afford. The banner unit was the 316th 
Field Signal Battalion, with every one of its 145 members 
insured for the maximum allowed, $10,000. In 119 comp- 
anies, one hundred percent were insured. Officers took 
pains to explain its benefits and provisions to the unin- 
formed, those who carried outside insurance understood 
they were obtaining war insurance at peace cost, a $10,- 
000 policy which cost the government about $1000 for 
$75 a year. Benevolent societies refuse insurance to sol- 
diers, and ordinary companies charge prohibitive rates to 
fighters. Then, too, United States insurance will not be 
subject to creditors' claims either against soldiers or their 
beneficiaries, and they may assign it to wife, child or 
grand-child, parent, brother or sister, while ordinary in- 
surance would recognize only wife, child, or widowed 
mother. Beside all this, the Government promised to keep 
up insurance or fraternal benefit membership which sol- 
diers held before entering the army, for as long as they 



174 THE NINETY-FIRST 

serve in it. This is the First Country to provide for and 
to protect its citizens in this way. Truly it is a Mother- 
land to its sons. 

During this Drive, Brig. Gen. Foltz received a com- 
munication from the City of Denver, informing him that 
an ordinance had passed there, providing for the pay- 
ment of premiums upon a ^1000 insurance policy to be 
issued to every man, officer or enlisted, at Camp Lewis 
from Denver, and asking them to forward names of bene- 
ficiaries desired. Surely in many gifts to soldiers from 
different localities, Denver's is First of its kind and one 
of the most sensible and generous. The Insurance Drive 
was finished by Lincoln's birthday, a fitting birthday cele- 
bration for the loving War President who had brooded 
like a father over the boys in his army, two generations 
ago. 

February means purification. Two rulers pre-eminent 
in World-Story for puritj^ of motives were born of it. 
Commemorating the birthday of the First President of 
the United States by the First Division at Camp Lewis, 
Governor Lister of Washington wrote: '7 am glad to have 
the opportunity to send a iuo7^d of greetmg to the mem- 
hey^s of the Ninety-First Division of the Natioyial Army. 
It is not a year since our nation declared a state of ivas 
ivith Germa7iy. Durmg these months the greatest mili- 
tary development ever k7ioiV7i in the same time ha>i been 
brought about by the U7iited States — During this month 
of Februa7-y, when we commemorate the birthdays of Two 
great Ame7'icans — let us re-consecrate ourselves to the 
service of our cou7itry." 

Both Gen. Foltz and Gov. Lister addressed you of the 
Ninety-First in Knights of Columbus Hall at camp, you 
remember, and again both spoke at the Elks' smoker in 
Tacoma. Brig. Gen. Foltz is a ready speaker. One 
'thing he said of Washington made the great patriot states- 
man seem nearer and more real: "If Washi7igto7i ivere 
he7^e today he ivoidd be a man among men; he would not 
hold himself aloof for he coiild accommodate himself to 
any condition." 



CAMP LEWIS 175 

The camp enjoyed a holiday. Hundreds cf Elks in 
olive drab joined their old associates in Prince Alberts 
and "plugs", for a procession, a dinner, and a smoker 
later, when Gen. Foltz responded for "The Army" and 
Serg. Perry, soloist at the Panama Exposition, and Pvt. 
Bondonno sang, so that the camp was represented from 
head to foot, with a non-com to boot. There was a dance 
for enlisted men, good music and plenty of partners, so 
you voted the day a success, didn't you, Ninety-First? 
Parties even yet seem natural to Washington, "first in the 
hearts of his countrymen," not in mine: but Lincoln, dear 
Lincoln. In his lifetime, the world gave Washington all 
it had, family, position, love, wealth, power, acclaim, fame. 
Of these all, Lincoln received nothing. Even the Presi- 
dency, an honor, though so crushing a burden, was em- 
bittered by slights and positive insults, added to a general 
ignorance of his greatness, and just when tardy Life, 
stingy of all save duties, seemed about to bring rewards, 
his murderer struck. 

Everybody, as usual, quite forgot who else was there 
that memorable birthday so long ago, there before Wash- 
ington arrived, his mother, there in agony and danger. 
Did she give nothing but life to Washington? A mare 
would do as much for her colt, and even she would give 
of her speed to the thoroughbred, that he would go farther 
than others. A woman gives soul, sense, self. If the 
world is not yet ready to write Her-story with History, 
it will, some time, indite Their Story. So here's to Wash- 
ington's mother on his birthday. Had she been another, 
would he have bidden his army that Farewell, bidden also 
to power, to proffered kingship, and have said to them 
and to us — U. S. spells the greatest US in speech — "It 
ivill he tvorthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant 
period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnani- 
mous and novel example of a people ahvays guided by an 

exalted justice and benevolence." 

********** 

Brig. Gen. Foltz resumed his command of the 182nd 
Brigade in March upon return of Gen. Greene. Major 



176 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Gordon Voorhies is its Adjutant. Having served in the 
Spanish-American, he immediately re-entered service for 
this war. Lieut. W. F. Daugherty was one of the two 
Aide-de-camps allowed a Brigadier-General, and whom he 
himself appoints. He is Captain Daugherty now, in 
France. The other is Lewis Douglas of Douglas, Arizona. 
The second Aid is now Lieut. Alfred Kidder — 'twould be 
selfish to enjoy such a joke alone. Mr. Kidder had traveled 
widely, dug mummies in Egypt, done research work in 
Mexico, and just finished a book upon that subject. But 
a nation's war cry carries far, he decided that Primitive 
Man, re-incarnated in the Hun, required study, and at once 
entered the Presidio, where he was subjected to a rigid 
and unusual mental examination. It developed that this 
was given in consequence of the report of his sergeant 
that "Kidder makes the wildest statements in reply to 
simple questions. Asked his former business, he had 
replied anthropologist, and had even said that he had 
engaged in research work pertaining to Primitive Man." 
The bewildered sergeant evidently agreed with Paul's 
observer, "Much learning hath made him mad." 

A Brigade is the largest organization within a Division, 
and is composed of two, or more, regiments. The 182nd 
has two, the 363rd and 364th Infantry, and the 348th 
Machine Guns, 8210 men. Its Commanding Officer wears 
one star, and a gold hat cord; all officers below Generals 
wear black-and-gold. Military terms tell interesting stor- 
ies, in the case of Infantry it is fiction, now, for while in 
feudal time they were those who followed mounted knights 
on foot from fief to war, infants in the sense of youngers, 
underlings. Infantry is today the body, foot and arm of 
our army. While aircraft from the sky, and artillery 
from the distance open an attack, its troops go over the 
top to do the hand-to-hand fighting. Infantry wear crossed 
rifles and blue hat cords. 

Brigades are divided into regiments, each commanded 
by a Colonel, which explains why the word is so spelled, 



CAMP LEWIS 



177 



he is head of the cokimn, for a regiment is a column under 
one rule, or regimen. And as the eagle flies toward the 
stars, and a Colonel ranks just below a Brigadier-general, 
he wears a silver eagle upon his shoulder strap. 





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§ 13 



COLONEL HARRY LaT. CAVANAUGH 



178 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Colonel Harry LaT. Cavanaugh, in command of the 
363rd Infantry, like most of the officers at Camp Lewis, 
is of a family long established in this country. His 
mother's people. La Tourrette's, were Huguenots driven 
by persecution from France to America where they owned 
most of Staten Island. His father was Captain of the 
1st Delawares in the Civil War, was wounded at Santiago 
and was retired as Lieutenant-Colonel ; his wife is daughter 
of Col. Taylor, Paymaster in the Civil War. The Cuban 
campaign was quite a family affair, as Col. Cavanaugh, 
his father, uncle, and brother all fought at the same time 
and place. His brother, a bit younger, is a rank and a 
Division lower, being Lieutenant-colonel in the 90th Divis- 
ion — Does the silver leaf upon a Lieutenant-Colonel's 
shoulder bespeak the tree upon which the eagle perches? 
The surrender at Santiago occurred just before Col. 
Cavanaugh's regiment. He took part in the so-called Puni- 
tive Expedition — which did not punish Mexico, and has 
been stationed mainly in Utah and California. He was 
graduated from West Point in 1895. 

Lieut. Col. Eldred D. Warfield is in charge of the 
Divisional School of Arms close by. There officers are 
sent, fifty at a time, for several weeks' intensive training 
in all such branches as hand-grenade throwing, bayonet 
work and the like, training by experts in certain lines. 
Upon returning to their companies, these officers obtain 
more efficiency. Col. Warfield was graduated from West 
Point in 1899, from the Infantry and Cavalry School in 
1905, and the next year from the Signal School. 



The 363rd, Col. Cavanaugh's, calls itself the Golden 
West Regiment. From it, early in 1918, some were ordered 
to France, and of them seventeen have already, as soldiers 
on the battle line say, "Gone West," out through the roar 
of guns to the stillness of God, from the hell of hate to 
the beautiful gate, through the murky smoke to the Golden 
West, "back Home." 



CAMP LEWIS 179 

Mamiel Parco Raymond Copsey 

Donipha7i E. Roe Walter L. Bones 

Guiseppi Fannuchi Mario Maschio 

Chris Busch Eugenio Franceschetti 

Russell Murr William R. Bedford 

Alex C. Hipes Hans R. Lars\on 

Will E. Rhoades Raymond Grover 

Demetrio Hatzidakis Joas da Costa Molles 
Matheus D. Soiiza 

The 363rd claims First Honors of the Ninety-First 
Division for these who "have fought a good fight and 
have finished their course." With great pride of possession, 
their comrades remember them this First Camp Lewis 
Memorial Day. 

Speaking of France, the 363rd has one still attached 
to the 91st Division, attending the Staff Officers' School 
there, Major Henry Breckinridge, graduate of the Univer- 
sity of Bishops College, Lennoxville, Canada, A. B. at 
Princeton 1917, L. L. B. Harvard Law School 1910, As- 
sistant-Secretary of War. Three years later he resigned 
and went to France. His description of the battle of the 
Marne is something to be remembered, for Breckinridge 
is an orator. He returned to this country and went into 
the army. It was inevitable, for war is in the blood, and 
he is of "the Loyal Breckinridges." His father went into 
the Civil war in 1861 as Second-Lieutenant and was brevet- 
ted for bravery until at the war's end he was Major-Gen- 
eral. He commanded the army at Chickamauga; at San- 
tiago he fought again at the head of Volunteers. Henry 
was too young for the Spanish-American, he is only 
thirty- two now, and was Major of 2nd Battalion at Camp 
Lewis. He wears the brass leaf which shows the lowest 
field, or mounted officer; that is he did when this was 
written, but it is hard to keep up with a Breckinridge. 

The 2nd Battalion lost its Commanding officer, tempor- 
arily, again when Major Woolnough was detailed as Chief 
Instructor at the Fourth Officers Training Camp. His 
appointment shows one reason for efficiency in his bat- 



180 THE NINETY-FIRST 

talion. At Fort Sheridan he was twice military instructor. 
Col. Cavanaugh had seen Maj. Woolnough's work at Sheri- 
dan and made an effort to have him assigned to the 363rd. 
Capt. McCullough of Company H and three Lieutenants, 
Strong, Armstrong and Marguard from the regiment will 
be instructors in the Training School. All three certainly 
bear good stout names, if the last applies his to mar a 
German guard, and here's hoping he'll do that same. 

To return to the composition of a regiment of infantry : 
it has three battalions, called because so drawn up for 
battle — each battalion in charge of a major, a larger, or 
greater, than captain. There are four companies to a 
batallion, and these twelve rifle companies in a regiment 
are lettered from A to M, so if you wish to reach Him 
without search or delay, address Private John Doe, Co. D., 
2nd Bat., 363rd Inf. The head of a company is, literally, 
a cap-tain leading 250 heads now. He wears two silver 
bars upon his shoulder straps. When companies were so 
much smaller than in this war, a good captain knew all 
his men. Now they are drilled by lieutenants in platoons, 
beginning even with squads, squares that means, of eight, 
a corporal one of them, incorporated in the middle where 
he can be heard. To each company there are three first 
lieutenants, distinguished by one silver bar, and two 
second lieutenants with one brass bar. A second lieutenant 
is the lowest commissioned, or line officer, in the army, 
and began by being the most consequential, but the hard 
work of this training, and the responsibility for their 
men's precision have offset the tendency. Some of them 
are really quite folksy with civilians. 

Captain T. D. Driscoll was of Headquarters Company 
until April when he was promoted to Division Headquart- 
ers as Intelligence Officer and Camp Censor. The 363rd 
is indebted to him for founding a newspaper which in 
several respects is absolutely unique. Doubly well named, 
it climbed Over The Top December 15, 1917, and has been 
climbing ever since. It has been favorably noticed by 
the great New York Tribune, itself unique among news- 
papers for two generations. The S piker, clever trench 



CAMP LEWIS 181 

paper published in France by the 18th Engineers, that 
superb unit which left Camp Murray last Fall for the 
front — The Spiker has driven another high peg by which 
to measure Over The Top's success, by praising and quot- 
ing it. In this paper the 363rd Infantry contributes sev- 
eral First's — and Only's: 

No. 1, in publishing a regimental yieivspapcr, not only 
at Camp Lewis, hut anywhere: 

No. 2, in paying its way from the stai't and actually 
clearing a little money, for the regiment, of course. 

No. 3, in a staff, from cub reporter to editor-in-chief, 
ivorkiyig f{or love, 7iot money, which, to be frank, accounts 
for the truth of the former astounding statement. 

No. 4, in being First and Oyily in ca7'ryi7ig a regular 
subscription of One Hundred Percent in its circulating 
area; for every one iyi the regiment, from Col. Cavanaugh 
down, subscribes for "Over the Top." 

Its first and only editor, A. J. Tormey, writes most of 
the editorials and attends to the publishing, though "out 
in the world" his was the business end; he was for ten 
years manager of the Enquirer, Oakland, California. 
There are eighteen co-editors, all from different companies, 
whose rivalry works well for news. First-Lieut. D. J. 
Smith is in charge, and Second-Lieut. H. P. Vickery is 
associated with him. "When the 363rd goes over the top, 
it takes Over The Top, You bet." He is mistaken, how- 
ever. I never bet. 

Speaking of Lieutenants, reminds me of Lieut. Law- 
ton's estate just behind the last line of trenches (Division- 
al) which makes you long to quit active business and take 
to playing house. He has gathered the omnipresent field 
stones — that glacier knew what it was to be cold, and 
provided enough cobblestones for a nation's fireplaces — 
and b u i 1 d e d them into a mound, with an opening 
through which extends an old stove pipe wearing a Shaker 



182 THE NINETY-FIRST 

bonnet to protect it from wind and rain. Bordering the 
front of the brown tent, bounded by a low sapling wall, 
is a lawn, so called because a man's-size lawn handkerchief 
can be entirely out-spread on each side of an imposing 
gravel walk, your two feet wide and your six feet long, 
which extends the entire distance from gate to tent-flap. 
At one side is a rustic bench upon which the pedestrian 
may rest half way, and gaze upon the lovely greens of 
the fir wood beyond, greens which empurple and gray and 
blacken as night creeps on. At the other side of this fairy 
garden is a sundial, and oh how I want that sundial ! I 
have never yet stolen anything, but I feel in my bones 
that I shall fall from grace before the close of my long 
and useful life, and I fear that a sundial will prove that 
blot on my 'scutcheon. Already, though several of them 
have begged me to ''Count only sunny hours," they have 
clouded my day with envy; in Europe; in that lovely lane 
near the Old Mission in Santa Barbara ; in lonely Kodiak, 
where an old copper sundial tempted and the little Greek 
church just beyond, rebuked ; in Cuba, in — and now Lieut. 
Lawton's! His is a section of small tree about a foot high. 
Wire nails driven into the top mark the hours and a wire 
segment cast a fine shadow as I gazed in envy. The sun 
came out on purpose to show how it worked, or rather 
played. I really think this should be counted unto me for 
righteousness, no one was near, I had an auto, the sundial 
was not heavy, I shall never, never have another such 
chance to possess one. It only again proves what a perfect 
nuisance a Puritan conscience is. I did not take that sun- 
dial, you can see for yourself if you cross the bridge over 
the last trench. Perhaps, what think you ? It might really 
have been intended for me. Circumstances certainly pointed 
that way. Well, I have burned the bridge behind me by 
telling all this. 

Do you suppose the regimental mascot, the Airedale 
which Mayor Rolph of San Francisco gave the 363rd boys 
from the Bay Cities when they left, really had anything 
to do with their soccer team's winning Divisional champ- 
ionship in April and receiving the "life-sized" silver foot- 



CAMP LEWIS 



183 





COL. CAVANAUGH, MAYOR ROLPH AND OTHERS 



ball upon ebony base presented by the Knights of Cohimi- 
bus at their Auditorium? An Airedale looks bad enough 
to be "good medicine". National K. C. Secretary, A. G. 
Bagley made the presentation speech and Col. Cavanaugh, 
on behalf of his regiment, received the handsome trophy, 
and responded in the manner which makes his regiment 
call him "our Colonel" instead of "the Colonel". Captain 
Lieutenant Father Galvan, as an enthusiast dubbed the 
chaplain of the 363rd ; who coached his team, also spoke 
a few words. 

A large majority of the men of this regiment 
are Catholics, but he would be as popular otherwise. 
Born in Ireland, graduated from the National University, 



184 THE NINETY-FIRST 

he came immediately to this country and San Francisco, 
as Arch-Bishop Reardon of that city had interested him 
and other students when the Bishop made his regular 
triennial visit to his old home. The young priest was ap- 
pointed assistant at All Hallows and later at St. Patrick's, 
Oakland. He became a citizen of the United States a year 
ago, entered the army and came as chaplain to Camp, 

At eight o'clock every Sunday morning. Father Galvan 
holds mass in Assembly Hall of the 363rd at a simple altar 
which he sets up for the purpose, and which packs into 
a Field box for this doctor of souls- wounds, just as a 
Field Surgeon's equipment does. Speaking of clergymen 
suggests an odd thing in the ordination of a young Epis- 
copalian of the 363rd, Schuyler Pratt, graduate of Wil- 
liams College and Yale Theological School, and just ready 
to enter the ministry when he enlisted. Still, he wished 
to be ordained before leaving for France, in his home city, 
Tacoma, which was done. He preached his first sermon 
thereafter that evening at St. Luke's, in which he had 
grown up, then returned to the cantonment to continue his 
course of study against Germans. 

To return to presentations: celebrating the third an- 
niversary of Italy into the war, an Italian program was 
given in Knights of Columbus hall contiguous to this regi- 
ment, the most important part of which was the presenta- 
tion of the flag of Italy to the 363rd in which so many 
of those born under it, now serve. It was accepted by 
Col. Cavanaugh with cordial, witty, and appropriate 
words, and Guiseppe Bondonno sang patriotic airs. It was 
a significant ceremony, of a kind that does much to strike 
out the hyphen, and the Hun. Of Company H. is an 
Italian private who, with three brothers, one in the next 
lettered company and the other two at other canton- 
ments all enlisted early. Their mother should be proud 
for she said "Yes, go. This is our country, go," Her 
name is Silvera, a silver name for a precious gift, four 
sons, none drafted. 

The 363rd won championship at the April Divisional 
meet for accuracy in throwing hand grenades, also highest 



CAMP LEWIS 185 

individual score by Merman, thirteen points, an unlucky- 
number for Huns in the near future; this at seventy-five 
feet from behind a parapet. He twice pitched the grenade 
exactly where the bullseye would have been had there 
been one in the white circle paintd upon the ground. 

When the 91st Division left Camp Lewis for the war 
it was by different routes. The 363rd traveled through 
Canada and in Calgary, Alberta, June 23, 1918, had the 
honor of marching under arms, First foreign troops to 
do so in Canada, although, several years before, the Sea- 
forth Highlanders enjoyed that distinction in Tacoma. 
Thinking the 363rd would like to hand down that First 
to their children, I sent to Calgary for this picture. 
When those children show it to theirs will war be no 

more, or will they be preparing for another? 

******* *** 

THE 364th infantry 

Colonel George McDonald Weeks is of a fighting family. 
His father, graduate of the Military Academy in 1857, 
served as Captain of Artillery in the Civil War, was Colonel 
of the 19th Infantry with McClellan in the Peninsular Cam- 
paign, and with General Howard in the Nez Perce campaign 
retiring in '98 as Quartermaster-General of the Army. It 
was while stationed in Arizona that this son was appointed 
to West Point. Col. Weeks married the daughter of Col. 
Joseph F. Huston. Col. Weeks was in Cuba during the 
second occupation, at Tien Tsin — stationed "everywhere" 
including Leavenworth, and Fort Wayne, Detroit, and was 
in the Philippines for the fourth time when, the United 
States' entering the war, garrisons were decreased and he 
was ordered home, with his regiment, to Camp Fremont. 
Coming to Camp Lewis he was assigned to the Depot 
Brigade, and started the Third Officers Training Camp. 
Only those connected with it, realize the difficult and 
speedy results demanded in acquiring in a little over three 
months the immediate essentials of a four years' West 
Point course. No wonder one of three, sometimes of two, 
drops out before graduation. So Col. Weeks points with 



186 



THE NINETY-FIRST 








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363RD MARCHING UNDER ARMS IN CALGARY 



pride to the record of the 364th Infantry in its far largest 
proportion of graduates from the third training camp. 

This recalls a curious condition in Company H at the 
end of March. When troops were ordered East, they must 
be furnished from companies not quarantined, which were 
few. Company H was the only 364th company, by the 
way, which never had been quarantined. From it one 
hundred-fifteen were drawn, leaving only line and non- 
commissioned officers, men in the hospitals, buglers, etc. 
The disappointment in not going with the others really 
worked to their advantage, however, for the remainder, 
with full quota of officers, was like an extra Officers* 



CAMP LEWIS 187 

School. Surely no other Non-Coms ever received such 
intensive training. 

There are numbers of Wyoming men in the 364th, and 
Gen. Foltz was stationed at Cheyenne when ordered to 
Camp Lewis, so when Governor Houx visited it, he was 
welcomed and shown the cantonment. The Governor says 
he met and shook hands with every Wyoming man. Doubt- 
less: but when he asserts that he remembered every mes- 
sage, delivered same, and to the right man, any grown 
woman will exclaim Huh, which is to say Houx, must be 
playing politics. If a man remembers and delivers one 
message to the right person, he should be elected, or re- 
elected Governor. Of course he boasted of his State's 
soldiers, every statesman does that, but Gov. Houx added 
that he was first to wire the U. S. Provost-Marshal that 
the draft men were ready; also, said he, fewer had come 
back to Wyoming than to any other state. 

But largely, the 364th comes from Southern California 
where are many Italians drawn there by the climate, and 
here by the draft. A squad of them is in charge of a 
corporal who rapidly translates drill orders, but that is 
easy. The 364th has one company which contains seven- 
teen nationalities, not sons of foreigners, but themselves 
all foreign born. To it has just been added an Esquimo 
from Kodiak Island away off on Shelikoff Straits. He says 
over a hundred have entered the army from there. When 
the men in his company learn what wonderful kickers 
these strong quiet Esquimos are, what strange dancers, 
they will have "stunts" that ballet dancers will envy and 
foot-ball coaches demand. Why, on Bering Sea I have 
seen — but that is another story. To return from these, 
no wonder an Interpreters' Corps is being organized at 
the camp for duty abroad: one would think it would be 
highly useful on the cantonment. 

Many moving picture men from Southern California 
are doing real work now. If you for a moment fancied 
anything "cissy" about them, you have only to learn that 
in bayonet work, the hardest thing soldiers do in camp, 
the 364th won most points in hot contests at the Divisional 
Meet, their Star, by name and fame, taking first honors, 



188 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



opposing fifty-six men without defeat. The regiment was 
coached by "Cy" Noble, former University of Washington 
football star, but now head of bayonet work in the Divis- 
ional School of Arms. The 364th took first, third, fourth 
and fifth place in bayoneting, which demands strength, 
agility and quick wit. The hanging "bodies", the height 
of a man, which they charge, are of stout withes a foot 
thick and often break the bayonets which must go entirely 
through, and also be withdrawn in one jerk for other 




CHARGE, BAYONETS! 

action. And these targets are swung, remember. Some- 
times the targets are of burlap filled with split shingles. 
They are also fastened to the ground to resemble fallen 
men. 

In this fiendish war the bayonet is much used. It 
is a weapon not naturally to American taste but, as the 
officers explain, it is "give or get", and, knowing that, 
a man feels that it is more blessed to give than to receive, 
and proceeds to acquire skill. The officers insist that the 
men charge yelling, and some, before the attack, inflame 
their men with stories of Hun atrocities. There was 
one big good-natured fellow, a wealthy lumberman, 
who found it especially difficult to work up the neces- 
sary "frightfulness." He did it, with sad results, in a 
peculiar way. He had a special aversion to chewing tobacco, 
so he decided nothing would make him feel "tougher," 
bought a plug of the rankest he could find, and just 
as he went into action, consigned as much as he could 
bite off to his mouth; but in the heat and excitement of 



CAMP LEWIS 



189 



the charge, he stumbled, fell, and swallowed the tobacco! 
He charges all that happened, plus the outrageous conduct 
of his fellows, to the Hun, and he is now the most vindic- 




A BAYONET LEAP 

five bayonet man in the regiment — which is not the 364th, 
however. I took this painful recital out of the 361st 
chronicles for fear of harm he might do his company if 
he thought anyone had mentioned it. 



190 THE NINETY-FIRST 

To come across a company upon the parade ground, 
bayoneting in pairs, themselves and their opponents pro- 
tected by plaistrons of quilted cotton, masks and gauntlets, 
and using stout wooden bayonets, makes one feel that he 
has suddenly returned to the days of old and of tourneys. 

In the rifle match between the two Infantry Brigades, 
182nd won, and private Herbert La Mar of the 364th holds 
highest rifle score for a single day in the Division Sniping 
Course. The young officer who was talking insists that 
"the 364th Intelligence work cleaned up the whole camp." 
That is another thing about the men of this regiment, the 
help-along spirit. At that Meet, for instance, when their 
men were wall-scaling, one of them fell from the top and 
could not rise. One of his comrades stopped, picked him 
up, and shoved him to the goal — what is that about" the 
feet that wait are soonest at the goal that is not won 
by speed?" 

The 364th band was also officially declared best. Its 
saxophonist has enlisted the good offices of the Y. M.'s 
in a new field. He recived a letter from a brother in Italy 
then returned from the campaign in Albania, who had 
just learned that their parents, on their little farm near 
Venice, are now some distance within territory captured 
by Austrians last Fall, and cannot be communicated with; 
also that their five other sons are prisoners to the enemy. 
He wrote inquiring if this son knew aught of them. The 
young Italian asked if the Y. M's could gain any informa- 
tion for him. A letter to their Headquarters at the Italian 
Front was started at once to assist. Seven sons all at 
war and aged parents swallowed by the maelstrom, surely 
these Daros will fight well. 

Having so much ex-professional talent, the 364th gave 
a vaudeville performance at Liberty Theater in May 
which proved that camp life only sharpens the wits. But 
there are all sorts of celebrities in the 364th. Capt. Wat- 
telet, former owner of the Victoria Baseball Team, is a 
member of the Division Athletic Council; Charles Mullen, 
former first baseman of Chicago White Sox, is manager 
of Camp Lewis Baseball Team and, though a private, has 



CAMP LEWIS 



191 



entered the Fourth Officers Training Camp ; Lieut. "Dan- 
ny" Carroll who toured the world with the Rugby All 
Blacks from Australia which lost but one game in their 




"•Sfcil.t.i^.., 




CHAPLAIN WILSON 

long career, and who is Divisional Rugby Coach; and 
Corp. Ireland, also Divisional coach and expert at jui- 
jitsu. 

Such a regiment needs a live man for chaplain and 
has one, himself young, athletic, Californian though born 
in Iowa — it seems to make no difference where one is born 
about being Californian, like being an American. Bryant 
Wilson was graduated from the University of California, 
where he was prominent on track and in tennis. He 
then took M. A. and Ph. D. at Yale where he was captain 



192 THE NINETY-FIRST 

of the Divinity School Baseball Team for two seasons. 
Then he took what gentlefolk used to term the Grand 
Tour through eight European countries, with three col- 
lege friends, but they did it in a Ford, camping out nights, 
seeing everything at trifling cost, and including among 
adventures one or two brushes with Germans who appeared 
suspicious of the "studenten", this was the Summer be- 
fore war broke out. Mr. Wilson served pastorates in his 
home town. Long Beach, and in Pasadena, for four years. 
Though married, with a little child, he offered his ser- 
vices soon after our Country "went in", and came to 
Camp Lewis as a chaplain for the 364th, a regiment al- 
most entirely from his section of California. Chaplains 
are not expected to be denominational, and are not, but 
if he were pastor of a church, it would be Baptist. Church 
lines, like party lines, are worn out by the marching of 
many feet. Only essentials count now. For instance, a 
man at one of the Y's one night decided that he wanted 
to be baptized then and there. "Was there a minister 
handy? Any kind would do." It happened a Baptist 
clergyman was, and the soldier was baptized from a tea- 
cup in the Y office. This spirit has been constantly gain- 
ing, to everybody's satisfaction except that of an Episco- 
palian Bishop who visited Camp Lewis and deplored the 
fact that denominational boundaries were being over- 
looked, which would make confusion after the war. Jc 
would seem that their establishment had in past centuries 
made all confusion possible. Why not leave Faith un- 
bounded? Why, that is one great Compensation of this 
war! 

Lieut. Wilson says that as chaplain it is his business 
to be of any sort of use to any man in the 364th who 
needs him, and as he is one-fourthousandth of them, it 
keeps him well out of mischief. In case time should lag, 
however, he looks up men whose home people have writ- 
ten to enquire, "What's the matter with — ?" Sundays 
he commences at eight o'clock in the morning holding 
hour services in one mess hall after another, about six 
or eight. These meetings are generally well attended 



CAMP LEWIS 193 

though attendance is, of course, in no way obligatory. 
Some sergeants interest themselves in filling the hall. 
One put it to his men in these sanctimonious words, "Now 
boys, a little religion won't do you a d — bit of harm, and 
perhaps '11 do you a h — of a lot of good" — that on the 
authority of a Y. M. 

To each regiment of Infantry there is also a machine 
gun company, a signal, a bomber, and a pioneer platoon; 
a supply company to provide for all the others, their 
ordnance, transportation, clothing, food ; a medical de- 
tachment. In short, each Brigade is like a little army, 
almost complete in itself, like a State; and, again, each 
regiment is like a smaller army, a City. All this has 
changed since the beginning of the war, and is still chang- 
ing. 



14 



194 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE 181st brigade AND COMMANDER STYER — WILKES' RELA- 
TIVES DID COME — COL. W. D. DAVIS, LT. COL. BENNETT 
AND THE 361st INFANTRY — THEIR TRENCHES AND DUG- 
OUTS — THEIR RANKING RECORD AT DIVISIONAL MEET, THE 
100% TOWSON'S — DINNER TO FOREIGN OFFICERS — COL. 
WHITWORTH AND THE 362ND — NOTED FOOTBALL GAME — 
LT. COL. JORDAN AND A AND B RANGES — ANOTHER FAMILY 
ALL IN — BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN B. MCDONALD. 

Of an old Pennsylvania Dutch family is Henry Delp 
Styer, as two of his names indicate and a huge Bible 
back East attests. It shows that the Kaisers' pretensions 
to kin and kinship with God once extended to their kin- 
dred; for among angels and prophets stand three German 
princes who have quite literally followed the command, 
"put on the full armor," and whose features are portraits. 
As if a German prince-angel were not preposterous enough 
without the anachronism ! 

Styer was born in the second year of the Civil War. 
He was graduated from the United States Military Acad- 
emy in 1884, was Lieutenant fourteen years in Western 
service, Wyoming, Utah, Indian Territory. He was sta- 
tioned three times at Fort Niagara, N. Y. where he com- 
manded from 1909 to 1912. In the Philippines he. served 
as Captain, 1898-1902 and was mentioned in orders for 
capturing the notorious guerrilla Vicente Prado who had 
become such a terror to his own people that they would 
not even admit he was in their locality. Came a young 
officer with news of Prado's whereabouts, and Capt. Styer 
decided to take him by disregarding universal custom, by 
braving the midday tropical sun under which even the 



CAMP LEWIS 



195 




BRIGADIER-GENERAL H. D. STYER 



land takes a siesta. Five rode silently along the soft 
road, hoping their horses would not neigh their remon- 
strance to the brazen heat, until they distinguished foot 
prints. Dismounting, they crept upon the bandit and his 



196 THE NINETY-FIRST 

followers, asleep in the shade, seized all and carried back. 
Prado was confined by himself in the strongest place the 
post afforded, under heavy guard night and day until he 
was hanged. He had so terrorized the Filipinos that even 
then they dared not pass his prison and many scarcely 
slept, so said one who lived there at the time, until Prado 
swung into that land where the wicked cease from 
troubling. 

Capt. Styer was professor of Military Science and 
Tactics at Utah Agricultural College for six years in two 
periods. He was with the 2nd Division in Texas, 1913, 
on the Border at Eagle Pass, and was graduated from the 
Army War College the next year. He served as Senior- 
Inspector Instructor of New Jersey National Guard for 
two and a half years. Promoted to Colonel, 1916, he went 
to Yuma the next year, was made Brigadier-General in 
1917 and transferred to the National Army, arriving at 
Camp Lewis in August to organize and command the 
181st Brigade. 

Again the fateful connection between the Old and the 
New in the coming of Styer to Camp Lewis! His wife 
is grand-daughter of Admiral Wilkes, a clever woman, and, 
like her famous grand-father, keenly observant and a col- 
lector. Filipino basket-hats bespeak their wearer's district 
and are of exquisite workmanship — when a man wears 
only a shirt-collar and a pair of spurs he wants them 
good. These hats, numbering one-hundred-fifty, without 
duplicates, were purchased from the very heads of natives 
and are loaned to the Buffalo Museum, which is near Ft. 
Niagara. The museum of Boston, by the way, contains 
the diamond-hilt sword presented to Admiral Wilkes with 
the thanks of Congress. In Washington, D. C. are 
several Wilkes collections. A botanist, in all his books 
are references to the flora of the country he was exploring. 
He was father of the Botanical Garden at the Capitol, 
having brought to Washington rare plants and trees from 
many lands, including the first Royal palm which, planted 
in a conservatory, literally raised the roof in its enthusi- 
astic growth. He brought rare orchids from many lands 



CAMP LEWIS 197 

to the Garden, Wilkes refers to the varied flora of this 
Puget Sound region, spirea for instance, tree-size, called 
arrow-wood by Indians because of their use for its tough 
slender branches. 

Born in 1801, entering the navy at fifteen, exploring 
and surveying the South Sea Islands, writing many books, 
including "Western American", "Theory of the Winds," 
collecting old paintings — he was no mean artist himself — 
Wilkes was busy till the last of his seventy-six years, 
though his daughter, past ninety, is president of the Wo- 
men's Auxiliary, Washington, D. C. diocese and takes 
especial interest in the war, having sixteen nephews and 
grand-nephews officers in it, army and navy. Miss Wilkes 
had the portrait of her father, painted by Sully in 1845, 
photographed especially for this book and learning that 
its pictures were autographed, cut a signature from a fam- 
ily letter, to be pasted upon the photograph. 

Of the descendants serving are the two sons of Gen. 
and Mrs. Styer, Delp in the army, Charles Wilkes Styer 
in the navy. Their mother acknowledged a divided loyalty 
the day she walked between her West Point cadet and her 
Annapolis middy to the Army and Navy Football game 
just before their graduation. 

Odd that Admiral Wilkes should have written of his 
desire to return to this beautiful region, bringing family 
and friends with him to the very spot where Gen. Styer's 
Headquarters of the 181st Brigade stand. With the same 
love of flowers, its Commander planted them everywhere 
and in a letter of thanks for many donated said, "We have 
received plants and rose bushes from various parts of 
the state as well as from Tacoma. We shall not remain 
here to enjoy them ourselves, but the 291st or the 591st 
Infantry Brigade may reap the benefit. Camp Lewis has 
come to stay whether the war lasts six months or six 
years." 

Just before the arrival of Brig. Gen. Helmick, In- 
spector-General of the United States army, who made the 
First General Inspection of Camp Lewis, Brig. Gen. Styer 
conducted a minute inspection of the 181st Brigade, ac- 



198 THE NINETY-FIRST 

companied by his Aid, Lieut. Jack Browne, and Maj. W. 
E. Finzer, Brigade Adjutant who had been Adjutant of 
Oregon, Colonels Davis and Whitworth, Lt. Col. Bennett 
and Maj. Hanson of the Machine Gun Battalion. If there 
was anything overlooked, from bed and board to bombing 
and bayoneting, the 181st Infantry Brigade failed to know 
what it was, for Brig. Gen. Styer had been Senior-In- 
spector Instructor. 

Recalling early days at Camp Lewis, the Commander 
of the 181st twinkled over a story told of one of his Bri- 
gade officers, a rather consequential Presidio graduate who, 
striding along Montana Avenue early in Fall when uni- 
forms were acquired piecemeal, was hailed by a private 
from his home town with a familiarity of former acquaint- 
ance which was most unbecoming, as was his attire. The 
Lieutenant stopped and pointedly inquired, ''How long 
have you been at camp?" 

"Oh, quite a spell, but Jim, you must have been here 
a h~l of a time to be all togged out like that. Got a 
smoke ?" 

Col. William Dewstroe Davis, commanding the 361st 
Infantry, has had time to acquire American ways and 
fighting in the period since his progenitor came to this 
country as Gen. Lafayette's Aid-de-Camp. He fought 
throughout the Revolution and remained to live upon 
Governor's Island which was awarded him. Since then 
the Davises and the Dewstroe's, his mother's people, have, 
done their bit in all the wars of this country. 

Lieut. Davis married a daughter of Lt. Col. Charles 
Greene of the 17th Infantry whose people have added 
their fighting record, passed down from Nathaniel Greene, 
ranked as the leading General of the Revolution, barring 
Washington, whose intimate friend he was. Nathaniel 
Greene was the scandal of Rhode Island Quakers. Bred 
in godly manner to work his farm, anchor forge, grist 
mill, to study only the Scriptures, the boy persisted in 
reading history, law, naval and political science, studying 
geometry and books of war. Such worldly acquirements 



CAMP LEWIS 



199 




COL. W. D. DAVIS 



could have but one result. He was chosen Member of 
Rhode Island Assembly and was one of the first to engage 
in military exercises in preparation for the war with 
England which he felt to be inevitable. Enlisting as pri- 



200 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




HONOR GUESTS A 



vate in 1774, he was the next year appointed Brigadier- 
General, something of a promotion, and placed in com- 
mand of the army around Boston. He distinguished him- 
self at Trenton, at Princeton, at Brandywine, — where he 
commanded a Division, and at Germantown where he 
headed the left wing. Becoming Quartermaster-General 
in 1778, of an army without arms, clothing, equipment or 
discipline, he proved what Nathaniel means, "gift of God," 
winning the hardest fought battle of the Revolution, 
Eutaw Springs. Congress struck him a medal and voted 
him lands in the Carolinas and Georgia. With peace. Gen. 
Greene returned to Rhode Island where he was the hero 
of the war — wonder how the Quakers took it? Camp 
Greiene, National Army Cantonment at Charlotte, N. C. 
is named in his honor. 



CAMP LEWIS 



201 



"%r^ 



k^ <i*ia» '#■ M^^.}'"S. , W: 



if© *'#»#"# 






,#4 






.v.- -a? 



RS OF THE 361ST 



Naturally, Col. and Mrs. Davis' son Frank, is at West 
Point and chafing at being unready for this war. 

Col. Davis is a retiring man. Asked if he was related 
to a distinguished member of his family he replied that 
he would answer after the manner of a plain man he knew 
who "didn't go much on family but had a brother who 
did. No, I'm not related to him, but my brother is." 

Graduated from West Point in 1892, he was Lieuten- 
ant in the 17th Infantry for fourteen years, his father- 
in-law his superior officer ; fought at Santiago, served twice 
in the Philippines and was Constructing Quartermaster for 
the four years allowed an officer at one time. Workmen 
under him were wont to remark that he seemed able to 
do, himself, anything they could do; that if he ordered a 
thing done a certain way, it could be done that way. 



202 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Col. Davis is glad to have the 361st, and the 361st is 
glad to have him, for though he is a strict disciplinarian, 
he is not a martinet, and as one of his officers said, ''works 
us fellows hard but never expects anyone to work harder 
than he does." And he possesses the saving grace of 
humor of the American type, humor, life-saver of many 
a situation in an army as heterogeneous as this. His regi- 
ment is recruited from a domain much wider than the 
area of war abroad, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, 
and a few from California. He was himself born in Michi- 
gan, has seen Western service almost entirely, never had 
a fancy assignment, and was for a time Commanding 
Officer of the 181st Brigade. He takes the keenest inter- 
est in everything pertaining to his regiment and is ready 
with praise for everyone's work but his own. For in- 
stance, visiting the Divisional trenches and dugouts be- 
yond the Remount, he introduced Capt. Scudder as the 
man who was to be credited with completing for the 361st 
all six dugouts required, excavated and built, by every 
regiment in the Division, before any other had finished 
one. This Capt. Scudder denied, "If it had not been for 
the Colonel's system and the way he stayed with it, the 
thing would not have been done." Capt. Scudder then 
produced Lieutenants J. A. Long and R. C. Page who, 
it seems, were also largely to blame. There appeared to 
be a common disposition to shift the responsibility, though 
it seemed to rest, finally, upon Col. Davis. They detailed 
sixty men in four shifts, so working night and day, a 
gain, beside time, in practice upon night operations so 
common at the battlefront. Trench approaches were senti- 
mentally dubbed Hooky Cow Avenue, Death Valley, and 
the muddiest. Pleasant Lane. They excavated the first 
dugout in eighteen days and it is sixty feet long, over 
six feet wide. It is doubtful if the soldier will ever en- 
counter more difficult excavating, as it extended through 
glacial drift which will not stay put, thinks it must live 
up to its name, rattling down from the sides in a man- 
ner to irritate a saint; fortunately there were no saints 
on the job. The dugout is reached by steps from the 



CAMP LEWIS 203 

trench and resembles a ship's steerage except that the 
passage between the double-decker bunks is narrow. You 
would think these underground dormitories would hold 
but dead air for dead men. On the contrary, communi- 
cating at both ends with open trenches, they conduct such 
a current that the end bunk is too drafty for comfort and 
is finished French style, with a bench and called a porch. 
Part way up the steep staircase is set a frame hung with 
two heavy blankets reaching to the bottom. These shut 
out gas. Though, in both senses, it is a long way from 
Liberty Gate to the trenches, visitors are many, for there 
they see exactly how No Man's Land looks. Except for 
its surroundings of fertile patches and virgin forest, it is 
desolate enough to make you imagine yourself at the 
battlefront. 

Lt. Col. Lucius Bennett, second in command of the 
361st, is another man who takes keen interest in the mak- 
ings of the new army, and was in charge of the Officers 
Training School at Camp Lewis until ordered to return 
to his regiment for service in France. A few of the other 
officers are regular army men but the majority are from 
the Reserve Corps. Maj. Mudgett and Capt. Williams are 
of the regulars. The latter had some odd experiences 
because of being confounded — such an appropriate word — 
with another Williams, also a captain, in spite of this one's 
distinctive first name, Carmi, taken from the "begat 
chapter." He has been in the regular army twelve years 
and was in charge of building the regimental trenches of 
the 361st, extending beyond Base Hospital. These are 
very interesting to civilians and though not so extensive 
are more accessible than the Division trenches. The 
sides are kept up with wattling which makes them re- 
semble huge fish traps. Sandbags, in this case gravel 
bags, protect top and firing step. Fire and water, bene- 
ficent both, destructive both! In Valdez, Alaska, built 
upon the sea's edge and edge of a receding glacier's bed, 
gravel bags are used to bank the streams which issue 
from the wall of ice beyond and which continually change 
their course because of frequent slight earthquakes. Camp 



204 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Lewis really owes a good deal to the glacier which cut the 
valley; for instance, it owes me three pairs of perfectly 
good shoes cut to the quick in this book's service, but not 
upon the walks laid, or rather piled, around Quarters 
everywhere. "Why did they make such impossible ban- 
quettes, the Creole word seems appropriate. Col. Davis?" 

''So they would never be spoiled by anyone's stepping 
upon them," he explained, as he like the others, walked 
beside them. 

"Yes, the Ninety-First has accomplished a great deal 
here in these few months, but we should have done more 
if we had had more time: it gets late so early here," he 
complained whimsically. Nobody can say of Col, Davis 
what a man did of a dull neighbor, that he could stay 
longer in half an hour than anyone else he ever saw. 
To return to the regimental trenches, they present a life- 
size study of conditions abroad, being of regulation depth 
and breath. Here, all day long, in classes of enlisted men, 
of Non-coms, of officers trained by an expert to instruct, 
they practice bayoneting, leaping upon dummy victims 
across the trenches or jumping into them in reckless 
charges which it turns your ankles to watch. And re- 
member, a ten-foot jump into a ditch, without breaking 
even one of your two-hundred-and-something bones is 
not sufficient, a man must maintain his equilibrium in 
alighting, and not only be ready for action but act, jab- 
bing the bayonet entirely through the dummy. Gun and 
bayonet weigh nearly ten pounds. This takes agility, 
strong hearts and lungs, hardened muscles, dexterity and 
quick wit — remember that game of jumping to avoid 
being knocked down by a board, back in September? That, 
and the "upsetting exercises," the manual of arms, racing, 
boxing, culminated in the wonderful exhibition in the 
April Divisional Meet when O'Brien of the 361st, and 
Miller of the 362nd, tied with such a leap from a parapet 
down, over twenty feet! They wore full uniform with its 
thick collar which, especially when engaged in such a 
contest, makes a man feel like an ancient Pict wearing 
his brazen necklet, badge of servitude. They leaped the 



CAMP LEWIS 205 

twenty feet and delivered the through thrust into a slat 
dummy. It certainly was a bad lookout for Germans. 

One young fellow on crutches: trenches? "No, baseball, 
but it's worth while breaking a leg for I'm to go home 
while it's mending. The other fellows say they'd break 
a neck for that." Yet one mother complained that army 
life had such a hold upon her son that after a good quick 
visit with the family, he was actually homesick for camp. 

Athletics have played — and worked, a large part in 
the training of this new army, recruited largely from city 
men and sedentary employments. In these, the 361st has 
distinguished itself. In the April Meet referred to above, 
Lieut. E. L. Damkroger, its athletics officer and coach, 
must have been a proud man, for the 361st won thirty- 
five points, the 364th, thirty-two, 363rd, twenty, and the 
362nd and the 44th, regulars, each nineteen. The 800- 
yard relay race, won by a close shave, would have gone 
to the 364th had not one of their runners started before 
receiving the wand, so disqualifying his team. Competi- 
tive squad drill was decided for the 361st also, with the 
44th squad a close second. Louis Guisto took champion 
honors for the former by his long-distance grenade throw 
of 159 feet, his ball-playing in the Big League making 
him a first class outfielder for that World Series where 
one tosses grenades with the speed and accuracy acquired 
when throwing balls with three men on bases and two 
strikes called. 

In this Meet, the 361st also won the wall-scaling con- 
test, five seconds ahead of the next best, the Machine-gun 
battalion team, viz. in 28.4 seconds, and after but one 
day's practice. There are many Washington men in the 
361st and it was Titus, a Washington boy, who first scaled 
the wall of Peking and entered the city in the Boxer Re- 
bellion. So here's to you, wall-scaling crew, may one of 
you first scale autocracy's wall and enter Berlin, and re- 
turn with a Prussian Helmet for this Wellwisher. Oh, 
but I want one! It would be really more satisfactory to 
me, and quite as useful, as the trunk belonging to Private 
— "of yours." You will never forget him, will you, sit- 



206 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



ting upon his bed in Barracks, fondly gazing- by the hour 
at the trunk which would just go under his bunk, and 
upon which was painted his name, large and upside down, 
that he might read it as he sat enjoying his "only piece 
of real furniture" for which he had "horned in" every 
cent he had left when he came into the army. He had 
nothing to put into it, but the salesman had told him 
that "that there trunk would bear being thrown from a 



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PUSHBALL 

six-story window." He never had an opportunity to prove 
the assertion as his bunk was on the ground floor, bar- 
racks are never over two stories, and he wouldn't be al- 
lowed to take a trunk when ordered to France. You all 
remarked, however, that he had his money's worth in 
reading that inverted name all Winter upon something 
individually his own. 



Lieut. Ira Towson of Company H was one of your 
regiment's honor men, belonging to a family one-hundred 



CAMP LEWIS 207 

percent in the war. He came to Camp Lewis from the 
First Officers Training Camp at the Presidio, in August. 
He has a brother in aviation at San Antonio and his 
father, formerly rector of the Church of the Covenant, 
Philadelphia, and recently of St. James, Spokane, is 
Secretary at Y-3. For several months all three were at 
Camp Lewis. The father enlisted as chaplain as soon 
as we entered the war, and while awaiting- an appoint- 
ment, entered Y work, but olive-drab is his favorite color 
and he hopes to wear it soon. His wife is a D. A. R., 
active in Red Cross work. Mr. Towson's great grand- 
father. Gen. Nathan Towson, was Captain early in the 
War of 1812, fought in most of the battles, participated 
under Scott in the capture of Ft. Erie, and was promin- 
ent in the hard-fought Battle of Niagara. After the war, 
the City of Buffalo presented him with a sword in recogni- 
tion of his services to that city. He was brevetted for 
bravery until he served in the Mexican war as Major- 
General. His two sons, like these two, fought in the 
Civil War, serving as gunners at Ft. McHenry when Key 
wrote the Star Spangled Banner. Why, a coward would 
discover in the cradle that he'd blundered into the wrong 
family and die of fright. 

And there are the Tooze's: the oldest. Captain 
Walter L., and the twins Lieutenants Lamar and Leslie 
Tooze, were at Camp Lewis at once. First Lieut. 
Lamar Tooze was president of the student body at Uni- 
versity of Oregon when the Ford Peace Mission went to 
Europe two years ago, and was invited to represent his 
college with that remarkable commission, the First of its 
kind in all history. 

Speaking of an army in the making, Capt. Williams 
tells of being accosted, soon after the first draft arrived, 
by a man who was digging near his quarters : "Say, Reddy, 
this ain't the job for me, Fm a bird of a mule-skinner." 
"And he was," the Captain adds, "I tried him. He's a ser- 
geant now and a good one." At that, he is in command 
of a private, a Psi Chi, a wealthy Californian who used 
to dine with a circle of his Frats in Tacoma. Asked 



208 THE NINETY-FIRST 

one evening what position he filled at camp, he modestly 
answered, Horse Valet. On the other hand, there was 
an old regular army sergeant who, like Kipling's Mulvaney, 
"was rejuced to the ranks." He had saved a goodly sum, 
but entering this debonair army where so much was going 
on, he got leave and went to Portland with his money and 
the usual result, which, in his case, ran from over-leave 
to positive desertion time. But he was a soldier at heart, 
and, ashamed, reported to his captain with the stripes 
already ripped from his uniform. 

The 361st will remember Private F one of those 

men who think themselves capable of everything, even 
to understanding women. His company decided a barber 
chair and outfit would be a great convenience and con- 
tributed more than one hundred dollars for them. Oh yes, 

F was an A-1 barber. The first man he shaved was 

all but decapitated, at least so one inferred from the 
shrieks of an excitable Italian who, seeing the blood, 
rushed out calling loudly, "Corp, Corp, tell-a da serg, man 
cut-ta da face, Baba cut-ta da man." He likely took the 
barber for an alien enemy, since the 361st had been in- 
flicted with a spy who stole important papers. 

The 361st first formally entertained in honor of the 
foreign officer instructors at Camp Lewis. Capts. J. C. 
Champion, E. W. Mawdsley, A. S. Foskett; Lieuts. Pierre 
Gambler, R. Gilbert, O. La Marche, G. Batal, Adj. G. C. 
Brizou, R. L. Shaw, F. H. Pugh, W. L. Warrell. 

Gen. Greene and Col. Brees; Col. Whitworth, Lt. Col. 
Jordan and Maj. Endicott, Maj. Finzer and Maj. Hanson 
attended to do honor to the foreign officers. The pleasant 
affair was under direction of Col. Davis, who made the 
welcoming address, to which Capt. Mawdsley responded. 
Capt. Champion spoke for the French officers, "On the 
French Front," and Lieut. Shaw toasted, "With the 
British Army." Dinners "to honor" are seldom anything 
but perfunctory, given to promote politics, to placate dis- 
senters, to honor their hosts, for any reason other than 
the ostensible one; this was a notable exception. Older 
men and ranking oflficers gathered really to honor the 



CAMP LEWIS 



209 




CHAPLAIN BRONSON 



men who had won esteem for their efficiency as instruct- 
ors, and the affections of those to whom they had come 
as brave strangers. 

The dinner was followed by vaudeville and boxing 
which could scarcely be equaled on any stage outside of 
an army post today, for the 361st is rich in professional 
stage talent. That April evening when the 181st Brigade 
was entertained by the regiment at the big Y-Auditorium 
will be recalled many a time in the trenches. 

Like every other regiment, the 361st insist, "We lead, 
others follow." In at least one respect that is true past 
cavil : their chaplain, Lieut. Eugene Bronson, was the first 
regimental chaplain assigned to duty at Camp Lewis. He 
was pastor of Grace M. E. Church at Everett, Wash., was 

§ 15 



210 THE NINETY-FIRST 

commissioned September 29, ordered to report at the can- 
tonment October 16. 

We who have watched the troops depart feel the truth 
of this poem which appeared in "Over the Top" at Camp 
Lewis just before the Ninety-First went out: 

THE PLATFORM CREW 

By Lieut. James Quinby, 361st Infantry 

The troop train groaned to a sullen halt, 

In the shadow of Devil's Slide, 
While the snorting helper coupled on 

For the pull up the Great Divide. 
I swung from the car for my feet were athirst 

For the feel of the ground again. 
And I'd had my fill, in the three days past 

Of soldierin' on a train. 
For I'm tellin' you straight, it's worse than a hike 

Or a shot at the K, P. crew. 
When you eat your meals in a box on wheels, 

With nothin' much to do. 

A brakeman stood by the rearmost truck. 

And the lines in his face were grim 
He growled and pointed up the track 

When I stopped and nodded to him. 
I glanced ahead up the platform. 

And I knew by the bustle and noise. 
That a crowd of the townsfolk were passing 

The time of day with the boys. 
Ah! We of the troop train knew them 

As we know the pawns in a play 
For these were the same as the others who came 

To our windows, day by day. 

There was the girl in the purple dress 

With eyes too old for her years; 
And the gray-haired veteran's wrinkled wife 

Who made a show of her tears. 
The pimpled youth who hung his hat 

On the rack by the pool room door — 
The stolid Swede and the gentle Greek, 

Oh, a dozen of them or more. 
And they couldn't have told if you asked them 

The reason why they came 
To chaff with the men whom the nation sends 

As fit to play "The Game." 

The brakeman frowned on the bantering crowd 

And voiced his grievance to me, 
For the Pimpled Youth and the Gentle Greek 

Are familiar to such as he. 
And familiar to me were the words he spoke. 

For I'd met them oft before 
On the human tongue and printed page 

In a nation gone to war. 



CAMP LEWIS 211 



'Twas the pitiful plaint for the man who goes 
On the lips of the man who stays, 

That whets a knife for the nation's life 
In the midst of her war-tried days, 

"Now I ain't a hand to kick," says he. 

On things I know nothin' about, 
But it looks to me like a sin and a shame 

For to send these huskies out 
To feed the carrion crows of France 

And rot in a sociable grave 
While the wops and loafers live at ease 

In the land of the free and the brave. 
Still, I ain't a bird to be shootin' my wad 

About things what I hadn't ought. 
But it seems to me there's a drawhead free 

In the Gov'ment's train o' thought." 

I looked at the faces above me 

Purposeful, bronzed, and clear. 
While adown the train through the gathering dusk 

There rippled a song and a cheer 
From the throat of men who found themselves, 

And knew why they were there. 
With their shoulders back and their eyes alight 

On the road to God knows where. 
And there on the station platform 

With the shoulders sloping and thin. 
Lounged the dull-faced crew of the things I knew 

Were what these men had been. 



I thought of the squaring of shoulders 

To the kiss of the Enfield's sling 
And the rising and falling of the hob-nailed boots 

With their cadenced and rhythmic swing. 
I heard the barracks chorus 

And the creak of the cantle roll 
The thousand sounds of camp and field 

That have seared themselves on my soul, 
I thought of the days on maneuvers. 

And the nights 'neath the naked skies 
That had quickened the pride in the doughboys' stride 

And put the snap in his eyes. 

I knew I was right and the brakie was wrong. 

But I knew in my heart it was true 
That he couldn't get hep if I told him. 

So I'm passing it on to you. 
That they go not as a sacrifice, 

Who answer the bugle's call; 
For the things they gain are greater than death, 

It's the price they pay, that's all. 
Maybe you'll understand me. 

But I doubt in my soul if you do; 
It all depends on whether you're men 

Or belong to the platform crew. 



212 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



THE 362nd infantry 
In his regiment, to a man, it would seem, Col. Pegram 
Whitworth is regarded as The, if not the Only, Colonel. 
He has identified himself so closely with the work of his 




COL. WHITWORTH 



CAMP LEWIS 213 

men that more of them know him personally than is 
usual even in the National Army. He was born in Louis- 
iana and entered the United States Military Academy at 
eighteen. In spite of his youth, he kept up to the mark 
in all studies except French, falling below a fraction of 
one per cent in that; so at the year's end he was informed 
he was not to go on. This was a blow to the boy, but 
instead of giving up, he appeared before the august Army 
Board and put it to them as man to man. He reminded 
them that it was but a fraction, and French, which he 
had not previously studied, that soldiers could fight in 
English, but that he would conquer the alien language 
next semester. They held to their decision, whereupon 
the lad politely remarked that he felt quite sure upon re- 
flection they would see he was right, that he should not 
miss his chance to be a soldier for a small lack, easily 
supplied the second year, he would therefore leave his 
address at a hotel in a nearby city where they might wire 
him and he would return. This he did, saluted, departed. 
The next day they did telegraph and he did return, made 
good as he promised, and "Peggy", his West Point name, 
was graduated in 1894. 

He was ordered to El Paso, then to Fort Sam Houston 
at San Antonio. In the Spanish-American war, he was 
taken from the 18th Infantry as Aid to Gen. McArthur. 
Transferred from one infantry regiment to another, he 
generally returned to the 1st, which, oddly, camped at Mur- 
ray awaiting the departure of the 91st Division to afford 
quarters at Camp Lewis. He was with this regiment at 
several posts, including P'^ort Brady, Michigan, and was 
its regimental Quartermaster in 1906 under Col. Duggan 
when he sailed from New York to the Philippines through 
Suez Canal, returning by the same route with Gen. Wood. 
At Malta, the oflficers were entertained by the Governor. 
Here Whitworth left the ship and made a tour through 
Europe, 1908. He has served three times in the Islands, 
where he was again Aid, this time to Gen. Duggan, and 
was stationed at Panama with the 10th under General, 
then Colonel, Greene. For several months of 1912 he was 



214 THE NINETY-FIRST 

in the office of the Quartermaster-General at Washington. 
At Galveston he built the re-inforced concrete Fort Croc- 
kett from the ground up, not much ground either, nor 
had it been there much longer than he. 

Graduated from the Line School at Leavenworth in 
1915, he proceeded to Nogalles, Arizona, as Major of the 
12th, and was then assigned to the Presidio where he 
was Instructor at the First Officers Training Camp. Au- 
gust 5, 1917, he was transferred to the National Army 
and ordered to Camp Lewis which he reached August 21, 
Colonel. 

The Whitworth's were from England where one of 
them, Joseph, usurped his American relatives' seeming 
pre-emption of Artillery and Arms improvements, by in- 
venting the breech-loading cannon and rifle. He began 
manufacturing them in 1854, and in recognition of this 
achievement was knighted. Whitworth shells were usea 
all through our Civil War. 

Col. Whitworth's mother was a Pegram, grand-daugh- 
ter of Maj. Baker Pegram, whose close relatives were Gen. 
James Pegram, Maj .-Gen. John Pegram, Commander of 
Virginia's land forces in the War of 1812, and Robert 
Baker Pegram. Again the relationship between Wilkes 
and his officers and Camp Lewis and its officers ! This 
R. B. Pegram was of the Navy and accompanied the 
Wilkes' Exploring Expedition. The Virginia Assembly 
voted him, by acclamation, a sword for gallant conduct, 
especially in the capture of a piratical flotilla in the Sea 
of China. Even the British Commander in those wacers 
and Queen Victoria herself sent Pegram testimonials. 

Second-lieutenant Pegram Whitworth became First- 
lieutenant within four years in the Philippines and was 
recommended for a medal for bravery by Gen. J. Franklin 
Bell. While stationed at Manila, unable to obtain leave, 
he was married to Col. Gilbert Smith's daughter who went 
there with her mother for the ceremony, the first American 
girl to wed an officer in Manila. Their boy Pegram, must 
be "a nat'l bohn Colonel." The little family has always 
accompanied Whitworth. It made me seasick and travel- 
worn even to tag around after them on paper. 



CAMP LEWIS 215 

Col. Whitworth is exasperatingly retiring. Consider- 
ing how much he has seen and known he should be more 
generous with it. He holds the Distinguished Pistol-Shot 
medal, won by three succeeding annual victories over 
teams picked from the entire United States Army, and 
more difficult to acquire than the same for rifle shooting, 
which he would doubtless have also held only that, after 
two victories, foreign service prevented his appearing for 
the third contest. 

At Camp Lewis he has all along been President of 
the Benzine Board, popularly so called, for cleaning out 
officers either in fault or, more frequently, unsuited to 
lead. Col. Whitworth was an ideal man for this difficult 
position, keen, kind, firm with impersonal judgment. An 
unusual testimony was borne to this when, a few days 
after his departure for France, an officer who had passed 
down and out through the Benzine Board door said, "Fd 
have given anything to go with Col. Whitworth's regi- 
ment, he's the squarest man I ever saw. Fm sorry I 
couldn't hold my commission, but Fve learned enough of 
him and his training to accept demotion and stick to the 
army, anyway. I shall enter the Reserves : that time as a 
officer shall not be wasted. Col. Whitworth is just and 
capable; he's the real thing." If that is not mention for 
distinguished service, that tribute of a man dropped and 
hurt, his feelings black and blue, what is? For that mat- 
ter, a man capable of paying such a tribute under the 
circumstances, and of making such a resolve is also "the 
real thing," and has his part, if not a leading part, in 
this great tragedy. 

It was many such cases as the above which caused 
Brig. Gen. Foltz when in command of Camp Lewis, to 
make explanation of orders from Headquarters prohibit- 
ing publication of names of officers brought before the 
Benzine Board, in the following kind words: 



"The commanding general wishes it made known that 
in a majority of the cases in which an officer is ordered 
before a board to determine his fitness to retain his com- 
mission, and the board, finding him unsuitable, recom- 



216 THE NINETY-FIRST 

mends his discharge, means simply that he has been found 
to be a square peg in a round hole. 

"It may be that the larger part of the responsibility 
for having been so misplaced rests upon the imperfect 
machinery of selection which the war department has 
necessarily been compelled to use in the urgency and hurry 
of attempting to create an army over night. 

"It would be a great injustice in most cases to these 
patriotic and eager young men to hold them up to repro- 
bation, and everything possible should be done to minimize 
the disappointment they feel in being found unsuited for 
the work of officers. 

"Therefore no information as to officers ordered before 
boards or discharged as a result of the reports of these 
boards will be given out from this command." 

Lieut. Hoover of the Judge Advocate's office, was 
recorder of the Benzine Board and also council at Courts- 
Martial. 

Strange the wise Shakespeare should have questioned, 
"What's in a name?" Whitworth was both born and bred 
to his. By all accounts, from boyhood he would 7'am into 
work then peg along steadily finding every Whit of what 
he was doing worth doing well. Same for play: realizing 
how much athletics was doing for recruits in building 
enduring physique, he proposed staging a football game 
in the great Tacoma Stadium to provide a fund for enlist- 
ed men of the 362nd for base, basket and football equip- 
ment, boxing gloves, punching bags and the like. This 
was enthusiastically taken up by his officers and the game 
played October 13 before a great crowd, the Army Of- 
ficers Eleven against Washington State College under 
"Lonestar" Dietz, who was not the lone star by twenty-two, 
for both teams were constellations. Dietz is the Indian 
formerly ruling Carlisle football and, incidentally, husband 
of Angel de Cora, the Indian artist who maintains a 
studio in New York City. 

A handsome souvenir program added to the proceeds. 
From it were taken these bits of fresh detail which the 
362nd might like "to salt down." 

"Dietz, coach of Washington State is credited with 
having revolutionized Western football by his peculiar 



CAMP LEWIS 21.7 

style of attack with its battering ram interference. He 
has the honor of being the first Western coach to have 
ever lead a Western team to victory over a team from 
East of the Alleghenies. Walter Eckersall, of Chicago, 
who refereed the Washington State-Brown game, said 
Dietz' eleven was the best he had ever seen. Dietz has a 
national reputation. If his team can again turn the trick, 
even the most sanguine of Eastern critics will have to 
concede the supremacy of the West, something they have 
been very loath to admit." 

"The Army Officers' football team belongs to that class 
known as all-stars. Every one of them has played foot- 
ball on one of the large universities, well-known colleges, 
or strong club teams. They come from all parts of the 
United States and so make an organization that is typically 
American. Not a member of the team is over thirty, 
average age twenty-five years, not has-beens. In fact, 
practically every one was on a college or varsity last fall. 
They are all members of "The First Ten Thousand" of 
selected men picked by the United States Government to 
lead the new National Army in France. They have just 
come from three strenuous months of military training at 
the Presidio of San Francisco, where the survival of the 
fittest was very much in evidence. Of the three thousand 
men that the United States Government selected for train- 
ing of officers, they belong to the one thousand who 
survived." 

"The public has seen many famous all-star teams fail 
to make good in spite of their reputations. That was 
because they were taken from office desks out of con- 
dition and with little amount of coaching. But these 
men in addition to practicing football two hours a day 
for the last four weeks, have been drilling and going 
through eight hours of physical and military drill every 
day. Physically they are fit." 

"Lieutenant Colonel W. H. Jordan has given the squad 
the benefit of his football experience and coaching. He 
knows the game from start to finish. Before entering 
the United States Army, he lived in Portland and was 
the star halfback and captain of the Multnomah Athletic 
Club. That was some years ago. Since then he has 
coached hundreds of army teams and followed the game 
closely." 

"Lieutenant Duerr, right end, played under Stagg at 
Chicago University, and in his prep days at Culver Mili- 
tary Academy; Lieutenant May, captain of the Oregon 



218 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Aggies and all-Northwestern tackle and halfback ; Captain 
Thorpe, right guard, Stanford University athlete, star at 
both Rugby and American, before entering Stanford 
played on Belmont Military Academy ; Lieutenant Russell, 
center, University of California, center at Berkeley for 
the last three years, played against U. of W., in Seattle 
both last year and the year before; Lieutenant Morse, 
left guard, learned the game in Southern California ; 
Captain Worsham, left tackle, played at Purdue, a re- 
markable all-round athlete and one of the best boxers 
in the United States Army; Lieutenant Card, left end, is 
new to the American game, but is rated as the greatest 
Rugby player ever produced in America; Lieutenant Kap- 
ple quarterback last year for Utah Agricultural College; 
Lieutenant McLean, fullback, hails from McGill University, 
Montreal, Canada; Lieutenant Bell never played college 
football, but was picked last year as all-California inter- 
scholastic halfback ; Lieutenant Hutchinson Stanford Uni- 
versity man, and in addition to being a football player is 
one of the best of the younger set of tennis players in 
California." 



The result, you thousands of ''rooters" remember, 
justified the claims of both to all-star teams, for the two 
constellations, in a draw, maintained the center of gravity, 
the only gravity that was maintained. 

Second only in efficiency in command of the 362nd, 
stands Lt. Col. W. H. Jordan. As above seen, he was 
prominent in its athletics and, indeed, in Division athletics. 
Had army regulations not forbidden, the Camp Field would 
have been named for him. 

From sheer ability he has rapidly advanced since en- 
listing as a private in the Oregon Volunteers for the 
Spanish American War. In the Philippines he was ap- 
pointed First-Lieutenant of the 18th Infantry, 1898, pro- 
moted to a Captaincy in the 12th, 1904. Then he served 
in the Quartermaster Corps and later was Adjutant of 
the 14th for three years at Fort Lawton. In 1916 he 
was ordered to the Border and then to the Presidio, where 
he was Instructor of the First Officers Training Camp. 
Last Summer he was appointed Major and a few weeks 
later Lieutenant-Colonel and ordered to Camp Lewis. 




LIEUT.-COL. JORDAN 



220 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Under him in the newly organized regiment were a num- 
ber of young officers from his classes in the Presidio so 
training just naturally went on from there. The regi- 
ment had counted upon his going to France with it and 
was disappointed, though congratulatory, when just as 
the Division moved out, he was moved on, to Fort Douglas, 
Utah, promoted to Colonel of the 20th Infantry. 

As Range Officer, Lt. Col. Jordan distinguished him- 
self. He it was who contrived a system of lights which 
made night firing practical, valuable training, since modern 
warfare knows no rest. He also worked out the B-range 
system, completed just before the Division went out. 

Over in the woods where the sun-flecks play and the 
birds sing, rookies begin rifle practice without firing a 
shot. It is an odd sight, a man in denim balancing a 
gun on a stump covered with a gunny sack and aiming 
at a sheet of white paper tacked to a tree where stands 
his second. As he sights the silent rifle he calls, "Quarter 
inch left and eighth inch lower." When the targetman has 
located the spot sighted, he pricks the paper. If the man 
succeeds in sighting three holes within a half inch tri- 
angle, he is allowed to shoulder his rifle and join men 
firing cartridges, before long paper targets. 

The practice fire progresses regularly. He may make 
a Marksman's record of 202 points entitling him to a 
badge and two dollars a month, or a Sharpshooter's 238 
points and three dollars monthly, or a Rifleman's 263 and 
five dollars increase in pay. He may gain the same by 
pistol shooting. Of course it is all done in a prescribed 
manner, at specified ranges and at qualifying Meets. 
Advanced work is done on the rifle range where companies 
spend two weeks at a time. Finally night firing is in 
order. Camp Lewis is said to be the first at which it 
was attempted. Lacking confidence, even good shots are 
awkward at first in the dark, but rapidly acquire skill. 
Lt. Col. Jordan is to be credited with the working out 
of this innovation here. He arranged targets illumined 
from below by electric lights at one hundred yards, then 
the range was doubled, and the targets shown intermit- 



CAMP LEWIS 221 

tently as if by star shells. This intensive practice produces 
results really wonderfully when one considers that many 
of the men never before shot a gun. One of the camp 
papers said that "Lieut. Regnier even coaxed a high score 
from Private Jim Tong Mow who at first insisted he 
could not shoot well in English." 

Shortly before leaving Camp Lewis, the 91st Division 
was drilled in the last phase of rifle fire upon Range-B 
which had been recently completed. Hitherto, targets had 
been stationary and at known range, but here, hidden in 
unsuspected places are targets operated by a man con- 
cealed within a protected pit, wherein is a wire connected 
with a buzzer in the Range office. When the American 
scouting parties are afield, these German targets suddenly 
appear, and the soldiers "pot them". It is the newest in 
instant adaptation of firing to distance, direction of wind 
and height. Instruction in these modifications and the 
curve of a bullet have preceded the last stage. Results 
have been unexpectedly good, say officers. Lt. Col. Jordan's 
innovations upon Rifle Ranges A and B have been most 
valuable in the training. His two assistant Range Of- 
ficers were ordered back to their regiments and went to 
France. First-Lieutenant Turnbull of the 362nd was a 
Boer War Veteran whose experience in South Africa, 
where men all but grew to their rifles, was a gain. The 
other assistant was Lieut. Charles S. Greely of the 363rd. 

Col. Jordan is scarcely a man one associates with Valen- 
tine's Day, yet he was almost the only officer in the regi- 
ment to be remembered February 14, His subordinates 
would give a hat to learn what admirer placed that huge 
red heart-box, surmounted by a still larger red satin bow, 
which refused to be hidden by the tissue paper wrappings, 
upon his desk. One thing is certain, she is original, for, 
of all sweetmeats! The rustling paper sounding Reveille, 
and covers thrown back, up rose the biggest crab ever 
drawn by Marines, and as snappish as crabs, human or 
Dungeness, are apt to be when kept waiting for breakfast. 
Odd, but artistic, and Japanesey and — why that's it — Nip 
ponese for "Be My Valentine"! 



222 THE NINETY-FIRST 








LIEUT. GUIBERT 

To many it seemed strange that foreign instructors 
should be necessary in a branch always notable among 
Americans, but training in tactics is different abroad, and 
unity desirable. So Lieut. R. Guibert and Sergt. Mirat, 
experts with the automatic rifle were detailed for in- 
structors. 

Another Spanish war veteran, volunteer, is Capt. 
Arthur Bradbury, Adjutant of the regiment. He served 
in the Philippines as Aid to Maj. Gen. Otis at the same 
time that Col. Whitworth was Aid to Gen. McArthur, both 
being Lieutenants. Bradbury was Adjutant of the State 
of California under two governors and attended the First 
Officers Camp at The Presidio. His assignment to the 
362nd brought him under his friend, its Colonel. Brad- 
bury is an old name in this Country but, on the spinning 
side, Tayler's an older. If you spell it with an e it was 
a Mayflower name. 

To return to athletics: Our national game, baseball, 
is not only a favorite with the ranks but favored by the 



CAMP LEWIS 223 

officers because of its skill, transmitted to grenade throw- 
ing, running, quick decision. To women visiting camp 
it is constant wonder that after hours of drill, men will 
rush their meals for baseball. This is nothing new, how- 
ever, for the Odyssey says of Greek warriors, "They took 
their ynidday meal upon the river's bank ayid anon when 
satisfied ivith food they played a game of ball." 

Every unit has its team. The 362nd has a Twilight 
League and the Camp Official Baseball scorer, J. E. Welch, 
who scores for the Division Team, for the Inter-Division 
American and National League, and for over twenty-nine 
within them. 

He should be up in logarithms, though I have no idea 
what they are and am secretly gratified that I can spell 
the word, off hand. 'Twould seem that baseball players 
have rushed to the battlefield as to an athletics field, and 
indeed baseball demands much the same strength, speed, 
skill, self control. Another Big League player, Capt. 
''Jim" Scott, famous pitcher for the White Sox, gained 
his commission in the Second Officers Training Camp and 
was assigned to the Officers Training Camp at Camp 
Lewis. He organized baseball matches for Wednesday and 
Saturday, relieving the strenuous studies with recreation 
which was continued physical exercise. 

The 362nd also boasts a man from a "family all in," 
Sergeant Alex J. Wilson, whose four brothers are in the 
service, whose father resigned his position as forest super- 
visor to stump for the Canadian draft law, and whose only 
sister is a Red Cross worker. Two of the brothers fought 
at Vilmy Ridge, where one was killed and the other was 
unaware of it until letters from home informed him. 

The Chaplain of this regiment lost no time in entering 
the war. Not waiting for an appointment, he enlisted 
in the regular army at once, but was transferred to the 
National army at Camp Dodge. Private F. W. Hagan 
was soon Corporal Hagan. He was next ordained a Con- 
gregationalist minister, finally appointed Chaplain Lieu- 
tenant and ordered to Camp Lewis. 



224 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Shortly before the 91st Division left Camp Lewis, Gen. 
Styer was ordered to Manila and Brig. Gen. John B. Mc- 
Donald assumed command of the 181st Infantry Brigade. 
He is another Southerner, born in Alabama, and graduated 
from the United States Military Academy in 1881, a man 
whose experience, ability and bravery appear in the bare 
details of his career. 

Assigned to 25th Infantry and transferred to 10th 
Cavalry 1882. Adjutant Quartermaster and Commissary 
Fort Stockton, Texas 1883-4. 

Acting Regimental Adjutant on march from Texas to 
Arizona, April-May 1885. 

Commanding company of Apache Indian Scouts 1885- 
87 ; Geronimo Campaign. 

Provost Officer, Apache Indian Reservation, Arizona, 
1885-87 ; Acting Indian Agent temporarily 1886. 

Commandant of Cadets and Professor Military Science 
and Tactics, Alabama Polytechnic Institute 1888-91. 

Regimental Quartermaster 10th Cavalry 1892-96. Com- 
manding Troop 'T" 10th Cavalry 1896-97. 

Commandant of Cadets and Professor Military Science 
and Tactics, South Carolina Military Academy, The Citadel, 
Charleston, S. C, 1897-98. 

Lieut. Col. 1st Alabama Volunteer Infantry in Spanish- 
American War 1898. Chief Mustering officer for Ala- 
bama, November 1898. 

Captain 3d Cavalry 1898, commanding Troop "I" in 
Philippine Islands 1900. Desperately wounded through 
right lung in action in Northern Luzon 1901. Recom- 
mended for brevet Major for gallantry in this action for 
continuing in sole command till victory was won, and not 
permitting his men to know of his wound until the action 
ended. 

Light duty on account of wounds, as Quartermaster, 
General Hospital, Washington Barracks, D. C. 1901-2. 



CAMP LEWIS 225 

Regimental Quartermaster, Constructing Quarter- 
master, General Hospital, Washington Barracks, D. C. 
1901-2. 

Regimental Quartermaster, Constructing Quarter- 
master, and Quartermaster by detail installing water, 
sewer and heating systems and alterations of all buildings 
at Fort Assinniboine, Montana, 1902-06. 

Quartermaster U. S. Military Prison, Fort Leaven- 
worth, Kan., 1906-07. 

Major 15th Cavalry, Commanding Fort Ethan Allen, 
Vt., 1907-08. Major commanding Separate Squadron and 
Machine Gun Troop 15th Cavalry, 1909. 

Army War College, Washington, D. C. 1912-13. 

Inspector General by detail and Department Inspector, 
Hawaiian Department 1914-15. 

Assistant Department Inspector, Philippine Depart- 
ment, Manila, P. I., 1915-16. 

Colonel, Cavalry, Inspector General, Inspector Western 
Department, 1916-17. 

When wounded and apparently dying, Capt. McDonald 
was carried for fifteen miles on a stretcher over a rough 
mountain road to the post. His superior, Maj. Kingsbury, 
and Maj. Gen. J. Franklin Bell both sent letters of sym- 
pathy and congratulation. At that time neither Bell nor 
McDonald anticipated a world war for which the United 
States would raise a great army housed in a huge canton- 
ment and to which that "dying" man should come in com- 
mand of a Brigade. Nor even a little over a year ago 
did such a thing presage when Col. McDonald came to 
Tacoma to inspect Troop B, Cavalry no longer, now serv- 
ing under Gen. Liggitt in France. Gen. McDonald was 
on the Border as Inspector of Cavalry more than thirty 
years after he had ridden that very region in pursuit of 
Geronimo and his murderous Apaches, whose name was 
synonymous with fiendishness until superseded by Hun. Ger- 
onimo, the last Indian Chief to rebel, was the last of the 
old to die, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, several years ago. 

§ 16 



226 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



With his Aids, Lieut. Earl F. Knoob of the 83rd Field 
Artillery, a West Pointer, and Lieut. M. B. Tayler of In- 
fantry Reserves, Brig. Gen. McDonald went out with the 
Division the end of June. Apache fighters will feel at 
home against Prussians. 



CAMP LEWIS 227 



CHAPTER XIV. 

MACHINE GUNS CONNECTING LINK BETWEEN INFANTRY AND 
ARTILLERY — THE AMERICAN BROWNING — A NEW HEART 
SPECIFIC — A GIFT TO THE NEXT DIVISION — A FIRST AND 
LAST COMMUNION. 

The make up of a modern army is so different, arms 
and armers, from the old, changed even since the United 
States entered the arena, that it is confusing. Take ma- 
chine guns, not artillery nor rightly infantry, though a 
company of machine gunners is attached to each infantry 
regiment, beside which there is a Division Battalion. Al- 
though used before this war, machine guns were few and 
of comparatively small importance compared with those 
which work such terrific havoc today. Until lately our 
troops have been drilling with various makes, principally 
the Lewis, even using British and French, though prac- 
tically all these and similar ordnance were the invention 
of Americans, or rather an American, John M. Browning. 
The government was awaiting an improvement upon them 
all before manufacturing to supply our entire army. The 
query was common," Why experiment with another when 
all these are proved and produced?" But the forthcoming 
Browning was not experiment. 

Many years ago, a boy living in Ogden, Utah, fond 
of hunting the big game so plentiful thereabouts, chafed 
at stopping in the midst of an exciting chase to reload 
his gun after every discharge and invented a repeater. 
He has been inventing and improving firearms ever since, 
but caring nothing for name and fame, has allowed any 
firm for whom he designed at the time, to take the glory. 
The Colt pistol, used for many years in our army, is his. 
Belgium, Russia, Spain, Serbia, all had Brownings pistols 
as standard equipment before this war began. It is said 



228 THE NINETY-FIRST 

one of them afforded pretext for this very cataclysm when 
a Serbian student fired a Browning revolver at an Austrian 
Archduke, killing the first of the millions. It was Brown- 
ing's machine guns which saved the legations in the Boxer 
Rebellion, and they will act a leading part in the tragic 
end of Kaiser Wilhelm who, by the way, once decorated 
Mr. Browning. So, coincidentally did King Albert who, 
when the millionth Browning pistol was manufactured in 
Belgium, created its inventor Chevalier of the Order of 
Leopold, so that he is Sir John, though he will never own 
to it. Still, a Knight of Ordnance is more appropriate 
than of tea and such — Maxim, Sir Hiram, is another 
Ordnance Knight. Nobody will wager which decoration 
the American prizes. 

The rapid fire rifle is the climax in purely infantry 
arms, and renders the foot soldier a walking magazine, 
for it can be shot from the shoulder and weighs but fifteen 
pounds, only a little over five more than an ordinary 
rifle. It has an improvement, in that it can be fired by 
trigger in separate shots or discharged automatically, in 
which case it shoots twenty rounds in two seconds. By 
pressing a button the magazine slips out and another can 
be instantly inserted. This gun is air cooled. It is the 
polished descendant, so to speak, of that pioneer repeater 
which the young Browning made by hand nearly forty 
years ago, when he turned the larger parts upon his 
father's lathe and hammered and chiseled the smaller. 
Repeater! Let us hope that the sharp repetition of its 
death message may soon be translated from the German 
Straf into English Peace. 

The nearest approach to it was the French Chauchat 
which weighs nearly twenty pounds and fires but one- 
hundred fifty shots a minute. These automatics are car- 
ried by tall sturdy men after the machine gun barrage 
and before the riflemen come up, as they decimate the 
enemy with their rapid fire. A section of automatic rifle- 
men is part of every rifle company now. 

As automatic rifles are go-betweens for rifle and ma- 
chine guns, the latter connect with artillery. At Camp 



CAMP LEWIS 229 

Lewis, a number have been in use, but principally the 
Lewis, with a record of five hundred rounds before cool- 
ing, though it had an air chamber. The new Browning, 
for which we waited, fires six-hundred shots a minute 
for any length of time, as it is cooled by water in a 
jacket which condenses from its steam, and it does not 
"kick" even when called upon to such speed. Major Her- 
ring had one of all kinds of machine guns in his office 
and was most interesting in pointing out their diff'erences. 
The new Browning machine gun, which has been adopted 
by the War Department weighs, including water jacket, 
but thirty-four and a half pounds. When used in an 
airplane where atmospheric conditions prevent the gun's 
overheating, the water jacket is detached so that the 
weight is but twenty-two pounds. It rests upon a low 
tripod from which it is easily removed. In fact it is the 
simplest of all machine guns as well as the most terrible. 
An ordnance worker can assemble three Brownings to one 
of any other make, and gunners can quickly take it entire- 
ly apart and replace any part necessary. 

Think of the ammunition required for such rapid fire! 
A recent government report states that the greatest out- 
put for one day was 27,000,000 cartridges for rifles and 
pistols. But they were needed, for the report adds that 
the daily output of rifles for a week in June, averaged 
10,142. So that the United States has again demonstrated 
that when it is "good and ready. Something's bound to 
happen": 55,794 rifles in one week, beside thousands of 
extra parts for them, think of it! That is a special train- 
ing in this war, the repair of everything, from a motor 
truck to a rifle, which the soldiers are being taught. 

No wonder that, as Capt. Emmet Colpin insisted, ma- 
chine gun companies are specialists, every man of them — 
this in reply to my ignorant remark that it seemed easy 
to fire an automatic, especially as officers computed range 
and elevation, a tender brought ammunition and cleared 
away empty shells, the gun neither heated nor kicked, did 
not even make much noise, for machine guns' pup-pup-pup 
is little longer than the popping of bushels of corn. 



230 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Capt. Colpin has had experience with them on the Mexi- 
can Border but says the work is very different from that 
of two years ago, and growing more intensive all the 
time. He has been in the regular army for fifteen years, 
and has seen machine guns grow in importance. 

In the first place, all the company must be expert in 
signalling, as orders for firing and cessation, change of 
base or range or direction, information as to location of 
the enemy etc., are signalled from various vantages and 
in any manner most convenient. Then, too, though com- 
putations of range, elevation etc., resultant from these 
directions are supposed to be supplied by officers in charge 
of machine guns, the men must be able to take their 
places in case of casualties, while many things like wind, 
the tendency of the gun to rise a trifle, enter into the 
problem. I remember seeing a young fellow out on the 
range alone after the company had completed practice, 
working away with his machine gun attempting *'to see 
if I can't get her to stop changing her mind about where 
she means to strike. I've taken her to pieces a dozen 
times." and he did it again. A gun isn't a her any way, 
and a she doesn't change her mind any oftener than a 
he, either. The targets were of paper marked in small 
squares and stretched along a wall of logs high enough to 
prevent bullets over-reaching. From all this you con- 
clude machine gun companies must be of men who can 
think, and think quickly, acting likewise. They are re- 
quired to be in perfect physical condition, long on nervv? 
and short on nerves, and to possess at least a grammar 
school education. They learn to take their guns entirely 
apart very rapidly in blackest night, to supply a part, 
every one of which is named, and reassemble them, by 
working blindfolded in training. 

In battle, each machine gun is served by eight men. 
One, in a slight depression, sits with his finger on the 
trigger, one watches the long belt with its 250 rounds 
of cartridges, woven-white the width of any ordinary 
cartridge belt. There are 272 of these belts to a load, 
which is constantly brought by ammunition carriers. 



CAMP LEWIS 231 

Mule carts are usually employed to bring loads from the 
base at the rear. Tripods are first set up and adjusted 
to the direction, then the barrels bolted on, sighting being 
by means of a graduated white stick placed a short dist- 
ance before the gun. The fire is automatic, capable of 
600 shots a minute which spread like a f^n, winnowing 
souls into eternity. This spread is known, so that ma- 
chine guns are placed at proper distances to produce a 
continuous leaden hail. This is called a barrage, a bullet 
barrier, behind which the infantry advance and before 
which the enemy fall in heaps. • 

Maj. F. C. Endicott is commanding ofl^cer of the 346th 
Machine Gun Battalion at Camp Lewis for the 91st Divis- 
ion, a regular army man who rose from the ranks. Two 
of the 346th companies are motor. Maj. W. W. Hanson 
commands the 347th and Maj. Gimperling the 348th. 

Of the latter is Capt. William Aird of the regulars, 
who served in Cuba, the Philippines, Mexico, and in the 
Boer war. Lieuts. Allan Duncan and Turnbull are also 
entitled to that service ribbon though they may not wear 
it upon United States uniforms. Capt. Aird's brother 
George, fired the first shot at a submarine in the Fall 
of 1917. Our Capt. Aird claims record time for the 175 
Californians in his Machine Gun company in rising, 
dressing, packing, in the middle of the night, for the 
trenches, to entrain for the East, or to ship for France. 

The 346th Machine Gun Company wants it distinctly 
understood that all organizations must demonstrate run- 
ning endurance toward the end of their training. Not that 
they have the slightest intention of doing any running 
Over There, but simply to prove they are the "huskiest 
bunch" here, ninety-five per cent of them stood the test 
of six miles running pack-a-back. They insist that it 
proves nothing except that all but five percent are stout 
hearted and the rest must match up or they won't take 
them along. 

Of the British officers who were sent by their govern- 
ment to assist in the training of our troops in the can- 
tonments during the first year of our entrance into the 



232 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAPT. A. S. FOSKETT 



great war, Capt. A. S. Foskett was stationed at Camp 
Lewis as instructor in Machine Gun work, and Serg. R. 
J, Ross, who was wounded in the battle of Loos, was 
another. 

Speaking of Machine Gun men, and hearts and Maj. 
Endicott, reminds me of too good a story to be selfish 

with. V , an old army man who had lately seen 

service on the Border, was ordered to report at Base 
Hospital for an operation. It was early in the Fall when 
wards were crowded and beds at a premium. On time 
to the minute, only to be informed that the bed destined 
for him was still occupied by a man whom the doctor 

had predicted could not possibly live till morning, V 

approached and looked keenly at the patient. "Heart 
disease," whispered the orderly, "return in an hour." 

In an hour he was back and, bending over the man 
said, "Haven't you cashed in yet? Don't you know that 
bed's for me? I'll give you two hours." The stricken man 






CAMP LEWIS 233 



seemed scarcely to understand. At one o'clock V- 



leaned over him, "Looky here: this is all well enough for 
you, you've nothing to do but die, but I'm a busy man. 
You've got to pass or ante. Don't you let me find you 

next time I come." It is only just to explain that V 

says he had seen that form of heart-disease before, and 
had the case diagnosed as liver trouble, white liver. 

About the middle of the afternoon V appeared 

again and the patient had rallied enough to be hurt. "Now 
this is going too far. You've either got to shoot or give 
up the gun. I tell you I want that bed, and if I find 
you in it next time I come you'll do your dying out on 
the mat, and that's straight." He stalked off and the 
occupant of the disputed bed waxed indignant and rallied 

round the flag of rebellion. Noting which, V upon 

his last appearance for day said, "Well, it's too late for 
my operation today, so I'll let you stay overnight, and", 
he added in a kindly tone, "this camp ain't half bad, and 
seeing you don't know what you'll be in for if you croak, 
why not get well?" which my informant said was just 
what he did do, "was fair kidded out of dying, which he 
really would have done." 

And what had Maj. Endicott to do with it? Well V 

had his operation and decided a furlough would cheer 
him, but the Major would not consider it, whereupon V — 
advised the relater to watch his smoke. He went to the 
hospital for change of dressings every day. Just before 
entering next time he blew his nose with great violence 
starting a slight hemmorrhage and told the medic he 
was constantly troubled by that, thought that it was 
complete rest he needed to recuperate. And he obtained 
that furlough. 

In the Division April Meet, one of the Machine Gun 
Battalions won a contest more amusing to onlookers than 
to contestants. Everything at camp follows bugle-calls 
which, as one of the officers expressed it, are apt to be 
caught with frog-in-the-throat. Probably that is why the 
competition was arranged. "Even my bugle is hoarse," 
grumbled a Californian — Californians did considerable 



234 THE NINETY-FIRST 

grumbling at first and sung their State song until, as 
one of their chaplains remarked, they quit being Cali- 
fornians and turned into soldiers. In this bugle contest, 
W. H. Maitland, of the Machine Guns was adjudged best 
bugler, and A. R. Handley, 362nd Infantry, second. 

At the Remount exhibition in June, in the single mule 
and machine gun entry for equipment and efficiency, 
the Machine Gun Company of the 362nd Infantry took 
the Loving Cup, leaving second place to Company D, 
Machine Gun Battalion. However, Company D won 
the Loving Cup in the second part of the exhibit, for 
time and action, allowing the second prize to Company 
E and third to A, both of their Battalion. The 348th 
won first in the four-mule team and escorting wagon, 
leaving second to the 362nd Infantry Machine-Gunners. 

Understand that in every Infantry Regiment at Head- 
quarters Company there are seven sections: staff, order- 
lies, and band ; a medical detachment ; a supply company ; 
a signal platoon with telephone section at Headquarters 
and at each battalion ; the pioneer, which does the engineer- 
ing for its regiment, and the gun section, operating one 
one-pounder and so connecting, as does the machine gun 
company just described, the infantry work with the artil- 
lery; and lastly, the sappers and bombers section. The 
former mine and undermine. The government and work- 
ings of a modern army are very much like those of the 
Federal, State, City and Ward, with Headquarters at 
Washington, D. C, for both. 

Bombers call themselves the Suicide Club, but the 
Artillerists call them Mothers' Darlings, Fair Weathers, 
and the like, because they must wait till the big guns 
have cleared them a way. Headquarters Company of the 
361st congratulates itself that the Suicide Club has not 
developed into a Murder Club, since A's eternal singing 
of one idiotic song has incited every man to choking the 
words in his tuneless throat. Not liking to kill one of 
their own mess, however, the bombers offered to extend the 
attention to his teacher, only to find it was the dear but 
misguided Lady of Hostess House. So he sings on, but the 



CAMP LEWIS 235 

bombers "hope for the best when he goes over the top." 
In case Headquarters Company could ever forget the 
words, here they are: 

"I'm a little prairie flower, 

Groiving ivilder every hour, 

Nobody ever cultivates me, I'm wild, I'm wild." 

his company say they're the ones to be wild, and they 
are wild. 

The Battalions, 346th, 347th and 348th willed the 
handsome new assembly hall, just completed before they 
left Camp Lewis, to their successors. It has a great 
fireplace by which they may dream of home when rains 
begin, and a porch, its latest addition, upon which to greet 
friends, for men at camp have learned that home women 
knew, after all, what was homiest, and when they go 
back, men and women will be closer together, see if they 
are not. The Machine Gunner's hall is the aristocrat in 
the way of chairs, having the only leather upholstered 
furniture of which the Ninety-First boasted. Their chap- 
lain, Lieut. John W. Beard, did much toward this assembly 
hall. Until Lieut. Reed B. Cherrington was appointed 
chaplain of the 348th Machine Gun Battalion, just before 
the Division went out. Chaplain Beard served all three 
Battalions. He was one of the later appointments at 
camp, coming from Hoquiam, where he was known as the 
Lumber-jacks Sky Pilot. Soon after his arrival, the boys 
thought they would like to see the parson ride, and inti- 
mated to the Remount that a horse filled with the spirit 
would be appropriate. The boys happened around to see 
the fun, not knowing that he had spent many a month 
in lumber camps. Well, there wasn't any fun. The 
Lieutenant mounted, the horse knew in a moment that 
he was mastered and a spotted rocking horse was not 
milder. 

It was Chaplain Beard who conducted the first com- 
munion of many denominations, held at Y-3 just before 
the Division left. Secretaries from the different Huts 



236 THE NINETY-FIRST 



Who were ordamed ministers assisted, First Presbyterian 
Church, of Tacoma, loaned the communion vessels and 
over eighty communicants gathered who will never again 
sit down together in this world. 



CAMP LEWIS 237 



CHAPTER XV 

NEW IMPORTANCE OF ARTILLERY — ITS YOUTH — TWO BRIG- 
ADIER-GENERALS BURR — ARMY WOMEN'S SERVICE — MO- 
TORIZING ARTILLERY — ITS RANGE AT CAMP LEWIS AND 
THE FIRST CANNON THERE — FIRST ARTILLERY CO. IN 

U. S. — LIEUT. GAMBIER COL. PRATT — MAJ. GAY AND 

PRVT. WILHOIT FOUGHT IN FRANCE — MAJ. JAMISON — 
WANTED, A HATING CUP — LIGHTS AT HEADQUARTERS 
— FIRST N. A. ARTILLERY'S BAND ORGANIZED, YOUNGEST 
LEADER — CHAPLAIN NOOY, 347TH F. A. — COL. GRANGER 
— FIRST REGIMENTAL ARTILLERY TRUCK SCHOOL — MAJ. 

DAVIS MAYOR ROLPH'S VISIT — ASSEMBLY HALL — CAPT. 

SUTTON — FIRST FIELD SERVICES — SOME CHARACTERS, 
INCLUDING THE THREE GUARDSMEN — CHAPLAIN LACOMBE 
— THE 348th and col. bottoms — OLD CAISSON SONG — 
SMOKE BOMBS AND ARTILLERY DRILL — CHAPLAIN BARRON 
— TRENCH MORTARS AND CAPT. MAWDSLEY. 

To the three great branches of land fighters this war 
has added what might be termed an over-land, aviation. 
It has also shifted the importance of those formerly em- 
ployed, advancing Artillery, youngest of the three, to head 
of the family, and relegating its dashing leader, Cavalry, 
to the rear. Men have fought and killed since Cain and 
Abel, on foot, since earliest Egypt days, on horseback, but 
only since 1280 with artillery, when Moors used it first 
in Europe at Cordova, and Ferdinand of Castile took 
Gibraltar with cannon in 1309. The Chinese, stationary 
for ages, primal discoverers of everything, had invented 
gun-powder four centuries before, but, as in everything 
else, did not follow it to its great end. After Spain, France 
used artillery in 1338, and Joan the Maid is said to have 



238 THE NINETY-FIRST 

pointed the guns herself, in 1428, The father of Artil- 
lery was Gustavus Adolphus who, in the Thirty Years war 
— and of this there have been but four! — used two guns 
to a regiment, and set all nations thinking. So Louis 
XIV. made Artillery a separate branch of the army and 
founded its first school. The French have always been 
noted in this branch, from Napoleon I. and Napoleon III. 
who wrote, largely himself, a standard work upon Artil- 
lery, till Today's fighting; but the Germans were the last 
to adopt it. 

China's unworked ideas have lead the world: Ger- 
many, in every art and endeavor has tagged along, seizing 
upon other nations' discoveries and inventions, reaping 
what other have sown. So this sponging World-Profiteer 
became "Superman," boastful, bloated, bumptious, baby- 
bombing Bosche — Bosh ! Even their Frederick the Great to 
whom for lack of great men they must ever look back, 
even unto the early Eighteenth Century, thought little of 
Artillery. 

Prussia? No. This United States, youngest of Na- 
tions, invented the first long gun to fire hollow projectiles 
by direct fire at long range, and Col. Bomford of the 
United States Ordnance Department, did it 'way back 
in 1812, called it the Columbiad; and the United States, 
inside and outside the Ordnance Department, has made 
endless improvements upon that gun in the last 106 
years. The Krupps know all that, none better. So when 
this War announced, "Artillery First, Gentlemen, — and 
Huns," we were ready for the Front after but short 
delay for manufacturing some needed Artillery and train- 
ing more Artillerists. 

The latter part of that preparation, for the 91st 
Division, was entrusted to Brig. Gen. Edward Burr, born 
in Boonville, Missouri, in 1859, educated first at Wash- 
ington University, then graduated from West Point in 
1882 with the distinction of standing first in his class, 
and being therefore assigned to the Engineer Corps, with 
the customary Second Lieutenant's commission which he 
exchanged for a First the next year. He was Captain 



CAMP LEWIS 



239 




BRIG.-GEN. EDWARD BURR 



of , a Company of Engineer regulars at Santiago, and 
later Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2nd Volunteer Engineers, 
but was mustered out of the volunteer service into the 
regular again after the Spanish War, reverting to his 



240 THE NINETY-FIRST 

regular rank. There his advance was rapid, as old arm^* 
promotions went, being Major in 1903, Lieutenant-Colo^l 
in 1908, Colonel, 1912, ordered in June 1914 to organize 
a new regiment of Engineers at Vancouver Barracks, and 
in August 1917 to proceed to Camp Lewis as Brigadier- 
General of the 166th Field Artillery. He had, on the way, 
served in the Philippines, been Commandant of the En- 
gineers School, Washington D. C, Senior-Assistant to 
Chief of .Engineers, and in charge of fortifications con- 
struction. 

Camp Lewis! Again that fateful connection with the 
past which tended toward this cantonment. Brig. Gen. 
Burr shares one characteristic with a former famous, and 
infamous, member of his race — wide scholarship. Other- 
wise, Brig. Gen. Aaron was everything Brig. Gen. Edward 
is not; the former, brilliant, erratic, never true to any- 
thing or anybody; while the latter sticks to study, duty, 
friend. Country, like a veritable burr. Good blood, the 
Burr's, contaminated only by the traitor whose father 
was president of the College of New Jersey, whose 
mother was a daughter of Johnathan Edwards, whose 
own position was among the highest of this Country, 
and whose daughter, the beautiful Theodosia, married 
to Governor Allston of South Carolina, was the woman 
Capt. Lewis loved. Had that love not been thwarted, he 
probably would never have commanded the expedition 
which gave this Northwest to the United States, which 
here established a cantonment for the defense of the Na- 
tion Theodosia's father wronged, sending to it one of 
his name to command a Brigade turning its guns against 
another conspirator with Mexico. It is like the House 
That Jack Built. 

As for Brig. Gen. Edward Burr, his family is his 
Country's, root and branch. He married Ruth Green 
of Portland. Both sons, William Edward and John Green 
Burr were graduated in the class of 1914 from that West 
Point which Aaron Burr commanded more than a century 
before, but who left no son to bear his tarnished name. 
Both are also captains of Field Artillery, the former of 



CAMP LEWIS 241 

the 17th, with his regiment in France; John Green Burr 
at Camp Greene with the 13th. A nephew, Lieut. Henry 
Reed, is stationed at Camp Lewis, while his brother John 
spent last year in Russia as war correspondent and has 
recently been appointed Russian Consul-General in New 
York. 

And Mrs. Burr is quite as much in the Service as 
the others though she bears no title, flies no flag. She 
came to Tacoma when the General came to Camp Lewis 
and immediately went to work in the Red Cross Gift 
Shop which does a rushing business. This was no swivel- 
chair position, in fact there was no chair of any kind in 
the shop, despite a law to provide clerks with seats, for 
if a chair came in, it was sold from under one. Mrs, 
Burr was as punctual mornings as if her nothing-a-month 
salary were to be docked if she were tardy; she had 
only a "snack" at noon, and, at the last, she locked the 
door at closing time or stayed over-time to conclude a 
sale. Nothing was allowed to interfere, not even the 
sham battle of her husband's Brigade. "I'm dying to see 
it, and invited to a beautiful luncheon in town, too, but 
this is my work, it must be attended to," and it was. 
Grown manager, she developed a real talent for business. 
The last month she was connected with the Gift Shop, 
it did the largest business in its history, clear profit, of 
course, for every article in stock was a gift. It is to 
be feared some of her army friends afterward repented 
the enthusiasm she inspired in giving of their dainty 
Orient gowns and belongings. Mrs. Burr worked steadily 
till the week after the Division left Camp Lewis, standing 
upon her weary feet as many hours as did soldiers. She 
did not even take Saturdays off". The General would drop 
in upon chance of a word with her between customers, 
to be instantly dropped if such appeared. Not many 
shops can boast of a Brigadier-General to balance cash 
of a week-end as this one often had. 

This seems as good a place as any to say to the 
women behind the guns of the 91st Division, what has 
been hinted before in this book, that few of them are 

§ 17 



242 THE NINETY-FIRST 

doing as much for the war as the wives of its com- 
manders, judging from those who graced the vicinity of 
Camp Lewis. They discouraged extravagance by their 
example in dress and living, they worked hard and intel- 
ligently, they kept brave and cheery. Some remain ; other 
have returned to the four quarters. They are missed. 

Gen. Burr arrived the end of August and spent two 
weeks in the guard house. He did; no other quarters 
were ready for him. He is the simplest of men, anyway. 
Surely only at Camp Lewis Hostess House would you 
see a Brigadier-General standing in the cafeteria line 
evidently absorbed in some problem, though it might 
only have been a computation of time, distance, and rate 
of movement toward the counter. There was little of 
style but much of skill that first year. Camp autos were 
few. Brig.-Gen. Styer's was still on paper, he said, and 
did not run well through the mud. 

Maj. O. W. Rethorst was Adjutant, Lieutenants Otto 
Trunk and Raymond Hartney, afterward Lieut. Parrott, 
Aids. Robert P. invented the Parrott gun, first used at 
Bull Run. His ordnance was the most noted during the 
Rebellion. One of his 30-pounders burst only at the 
4606th shot. He was graduated from West Point nearly 
a century ago, fought the Creeks, was Captain of Ord- 
nance Corps, and superintendent of the West Point Foun- 
dry. The Navy Parrott served with Perry, with Fremont 
in Mexico and fought well through the Civil War, Noblesse 
Oblige. We have many glorious names to live up to, 
Ninety-First. 

All organizations of the new National Army have 
worked hard to transform men of peace into men of 
war against a ruthless foe, but Artillery has surely borne 
its full share. The United States had so small a nucleus, 
guns are so much larger, problems so many, so different, 
so difficult. Even the older regular army oflficers are 
studying them, for the sudden leading importance of Ar- 
tillery has annexed a new realm of thought as well as 
action, and nothing is stable, not even the horses — that 
was accidental. The fact is, just when horses had been 
rounded up, trained by the Artillery to bring on cannon 



CAMP LEWIS 243 

and caissons, motorizing is begun in earnest. Horses 
were scarce, so many were killed going into action that 
cannon must often be abandoned, forage was costly and 
its transportation a huge problem, the terrific shelling 
had mined the entire battlefront, while fortifications had 
everywhere been reduced, and heavy guns must be moved 
from emplacement to emplacement. As the United States 
produces the best and major part of world automobiles, 
the Ordnance Department coped with the situation. This 
occasioned delay in Artillery. When our men serve in 
France their guns will be drawn by a marvelous five-ton, 
armored tractor which will haul a 4.7 inch, Four-Point- 
Seven is the Artillery name of the gun, over and through 
anything in the way of a shell hole, up a 45 degree rise, 
on a 70 degree slant. When tested, it cut down trees 
and climbed over the trunks, paid no attention whatever 
to a foot of mud and kept up a twelve mile gait, though, 
with its load, it weighed 20,000 pounds. Nothing but a 
direct shell will kill or even wound this tractor, which 

is now being manufactured. 

********* * 

Camp Lewis, largest of cantonments has a great Artil- 
lery range, the best. "No," replied Gen. Burr early in 
me Spring of 1918, "not the best, it is too flat, too easy. 
Artillery practice should be under conditions at least as 
difficult as those which obtain on a battlefield." Lord 
Bacon put it, "Practice with disadvantages, as dancers 
do with thick shoes, for it breeds great perfection if 
the practice be harder than the use." However, that was 
before the condemnation of the Nisqually Reservation 
where a long hill rising three-hundred feet above the 
prairie stops shells, and where heavy guns can be placed 
under many conditions of fire at from six to eight mile 
ranges. A second range for light Artillery has also been 
opened, or rather closed. North of Dupont where another 
hill prevents shells from striking shipping upon Puget 
Sound. So now Camp Lewis has another "best", and 
largest. 

It is a curious fact that the First Regular military 
organization in the United States was the "Ancient and 



244 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, founded in 1637. 
Eminent citizens have always belonged to it and at last 
accounts the A. and H. A. Co. was still giving its annual 
parade, hearing its annual sermon and sitting down to 
its annual dinner. If any of its members, on their way 
to war, or recovering in English "blighty" from wounds, 
should happen upon Artillery drill upon the Field pre- 
sented by the City of London to its Ancient and Honorable 
Artillery Company the same year ours was chartered, it 
would be right interesting to hear it. The Field near 
Moorfields was presented for a birthday present to that 
notable Company ending its hundredth year; so that it 
is just a century more Ancient, but not a whit more 
Honorable than ours, even though Staff officers and noble- 
men begged to be voted into it and Princes paid their 
guinea a year to belong. How strange if the three men 
to whom the Eighth Henry granted the patent in 1537 
could return, one bringing his Long-bow, one his Cross- 
bow, one his musket, for all three were "Artillery" then, 
and could be joined by "those Gentlemen" who were 
"desired to take care that their arms are clean and well 
fixed, and that they bring with them fine dry powder, 
and even match." This polite admonition was attached 
to a summons to meet for practice on their Field a certain 
day in 1682, dressed and accoutred at their own expense. 
If these two bodies could there be joined by our own 
Ancient — and Modern — Honorable Artillery! 

In this war, the French Artillery has been marvelous. 
The 166th Field Artillery Brigade has therefore reason 
to congratulate itself that a man distinguished in the 
French army, 6th Artillery, was detailed for instruction 
to Camp Lewis. Lieut. Pierre Gambler wears the Croix 
de Guerre, with two stars denoting citation before the 
Division, and a palm branch indicating citation before 
the entire army. Sergt. Guyon, his assistant, is also a 
veteran of the early days of the war. At the Remount Mili- 
tary exhibition, Lieut. Gambler won a ribbon for his hurdle 
riding. Even at a distance one could distinguish the French 
style of horsemanship. 



CAMP LEWIS 



245 




COL. R. S. PRATT 

THE 346th light artillery 



Shortly before the Division left Camp Lewis, Col 
Raymond S. Pratt joined it to command the 346th Field 
Artillery overseas. Graduated from West Point in 1901, 



246 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Col. Pratt had been stationed in the Philippines but, after 
the usual removes of a regular Army officer, which occur 
at about the same intervals as those of a Methodist parson, 
he was lately stationed with the 9th Field Artillery at 
Fort Sill. 

Col. F. T. Austin organized the 346th, but Maj. George 
S. Gay has been acting as Commanding Officer most of 
the time. He was honor graduate of St. John's Military 
Academy, and appointed from Civil life in 1910 ; sta- 
tioned in those same old Philippines, and in Honolulu, 
saw active service upon the Mexican Border, and is one 
of the few men at Camp Lewis, perhaps the only Ameri- 
can there, who has already fought in this war. Maj. 
Gay served in France from July to December, 1917, and 
fought with Battery D, 5th U. S. F. A. on the Lorraine 
Front. Wounded? no, none of their two hundred was 
killed or wounded then. It is comforting to those at 
home to know that this is often the case. An American, 
participating in a big battle early in the war, wrote 
home: "It is wonderful to relate that they must have 
put a thousand of these great packages of hate (six-inch 
high explosives) into our midst that day and that I 
did not see a horse or a man struck down." 

Major Gay was all but born in the saddle. At the 
last great event before the Division moved, given by 
the Remount, he took the blue ribbon riding Billy in 
the Officers' Owned Mounts. The old expression "won 
his spurs" by the way, refers, in army parlance, to pro- 
motion to Major, as that officer and all ranking him wear 
spurs, even when walking. The Major cares for no 
other amusement than riding and, mounted, belongs in the 
Centaur Corps. 

Had just written that Major Gay was probably the 
only American at camp who had already served in 
France when informed that one of the 346th Headquart- 
ers Company, Private Wilhoit, had served five months in 
the French army, had been several times wounded, yet 
is eager to go back for more. He owns one of the largest 
theaters on the Pacific Coast at Stockton but is now act- 
ing War plays where "All the World's a stage." 



CAMP LEWIS 



247 




MAJ. G. S. GAY 



"No. 6 was the First to fire a gun at Camp Lewis." 
Beg pardon, Maj. Gay, you look like an up-to-the-minute 
American and you are Seventy-seven years behind the 
times! The First to fire guns here were United States 
Marines who had dragged two brass howitzers from the 
Wilkes Expedition ship, anchored in Puget Sound just 
off what is now your own Light Artillery Range, which 
thus they christened for you, in a salute to that Inde- 
pendence Day which you go to prolong. 

Another 346th officer to serve on the Mexican Border 
initiating, in the "Brand new Motor expedition of fifteen 
trucks," the mobilizing which is one of the marvels of 
this war, is Maj. Natt Jamieson, who participated in a 



248 THE NINETY-FIRST 

raid which recalls another of which he will have nothing 
said; pity, too, for 'twas interesting. This Jamieson was 
Captain of Reserve Corps and an instructor in the First 
Officers Training Camp at the Presidio. 

Of the regiment's officers a surprising percentage are 
Yale-men, though Capt. B. H. Dibblee, Headquarters 
Orderlies, was captain at Harvard and Half-back in the 
Ail-Americans, as was First-Lieutenant Hamilton Corbett. 

Headquarters Company has other lights, but none that 
failed. There is Corp. Lloyd Ireland, Light-weight Cham- 
pion of the World, also Stegner of the University of 
Washington and McLean of Washington State College. 
However, when the Division asked for lists of athletes, 
Battery D alone sent one-hundred names. All this argues 
no good for the Teutons. 

The regimental band is, with Staff officers and an 
Orderlies Section, a part of every Headquarters Company. 
Was it mentioned that band instruments are Ordnance 
also? This unit has several distinguishments. It was the 
First Artillery Band to organize within the National 
Army, and with forty members, which is the number now 
officially designated, many more than others had, and it 
claims the youngest leader in the entire army, Sewell S. 
Snypp. He composed a march for the 346th, and just 
before his regiment left, went to the National School of 
Regimental Band Leaders. 

The 346th won the Thanksgiving Marathon, and 
treasure an inscribed Loving Cup — wonder what will 
become of all such trophies at camp while their winners 
are putting their athletics to the supreme test in France? 
They'll be taking Prussian helmets for Hating Cups. Do, 
Somebody, send me one to drink your health from. The 
346th must have more loving cups than any other regi- 
ment in camp. At the last contest, given by the Remount 
before the Division moved. Battery B took a loving cup 
as first prize for Artillery half gun section, and Battery 
D a box of cigars; in the unlimbering contest, D grabbed 
the loving cup and D took the cigars. When the start 
with unharnessed horses was begun, harness disposed of 



CAMP LEWIS 249 

as in the field, horses tied, carriage wheel and squad in 
front of the piece, events were tied between the two 
regimental batteries. B took a second loving cup, and 

D a second box of cigars. 

********* * 

"Do? Do in Artillery? Everything. Our first train- 
ing is Infants' : we have to know everything Infantry 
knows, and then some." The good-natured jibe was in- 
terrupted by some passing soldiers singing. 

"Your U7icle Sammy he-needs the Infantry 
He-needs the Cavalry, He-needs Artillery, 

And-then by gosh we'll all-go to Germany, 
Poor old Kaiser Bill." 

The last line came in ludicrous wails of commiseration 
connecting the ceaseless repetition with "Oh-h — Your 
Uncle Sammy." If you hear this in the morning the 
absurd thing will sing itself over and over in your brain 
till you sing it into some one else's. 

The young fellow grinned as he listened. "Of course 
he needs us all, but Artillery's the bearing branch. We 
drill three hours in the morning, ditto P. M. and just as 
likely as not lectures from seven o'clock till past nine 
evenings. Subjects? Mathematics, chemistry, wind, topo- 
graphy, we haven't had circulation of the blood yet, but 
it wouldn't surprise me." He would not fare better in 
England where they train Artillerymen from 6:45 A. M, 
to 6:45 P. M. and two nights a week. 

After Infantry work, alignment of horses, assembling, 
learning and naming all parts of the guns. It does seem 
a liberal education, doesn't it? 

Your Uncle Sammy needs privates too. So thought 
Evan Stallcup, Secretary of the Sons of the American 
Revolution, Tacoma, attorney-at-law, so he enlisted, was 
assigned to the 346th Artillery, and detailed as stable- 
boy. It doesn't sound warlike and it wasn't, in fact it 
would have made his great-grandfather, Gen. James 
Shelby of Revolutionary fame, a trifle disgusted perhaps, or 



250 THE NINETY-FIRST 

his Grandfather, the first Governor of Kentucky ; but 'Tige" 
got a lot of fun out of it. At any rate it was different. 
"So he polished up the hayidle so careful-ly that noiv he 
is" etc. In other words, Private Stallcup was soon Cor- 
poral Stallcup, and, as part and parcel of his new com- 
mand, had the training of sentries. One of them, care- 
free, good-natured, seemed quite beyond military propriet- 
ies. Over and over Stallcup would come up to challenge 
the sentry, who could never be got to reply in prescribed 
form, "Advance, Corporal, and be recognized." 

Stallcup, very sleepy one night after the unusual man- 
ual work of the day,made another tour of the barracks 
and again approached the sentry whose challenge being, 
"answered for the steenth time. Corporal of the Guard, 
triumphantly retorted, "Well, come on, chief, and let's 
have a look." Yet in telling it, the narrator added, "But 
the Corporal himself was not flawless, for that very day, 
instead of standing at attention when addressing a super- 
ior officer, he had tapped his finger upon his palm and, 
being good-naturedly reminded by the Captain, had, 
further, answered, you can't expect a lawyer to talk with- 
out his hands." However, he trained down and picked 
up the buzzer work of the regimental Headquarters comp- 
any so readily that he was detailed to the Liaison School. 

What's that! Doesn't sound very respectable? Is, quite 
so; School of military connections, the Division Signal 
School. This was something like! Stallcup, graduate and 
post-graduate of Stanford, seized upon the novel work 
and, the course ended, was promoted to Top Sergeant and 
retained as instructor in the school — "Of course other 
fellows knew more, but I could teach what I'd learned." 
So just before the Division moved out, he went East in 
charge of a detachment of men for short intensive training. 

"Never got so much out of a thing before in my life, 
wouldn't have missed it for worlds" — perhaps the old 
General isn't disgusted after all, but is watching his de- 
scendant's ascendant with a tolerant smile. 

All three regiments of the 166th Field Artillery Brig- 
ade are served by Catholic chaplains. Lieut, Otto Nooy 



CAMP LEWIS 



251 




CHAPLAIN NOOY 



of the 346th was born in Holland so did not go overseas 
with the Division. He studied, at Usher College, for four 
years in England, three years in France, three in Belgium, 
so that he speaks several languages well and is therefore 
often of use as interpreter in this Babel of an army. 
The college which he attended at Namur, Belgium was 
"all shot up." There he often saw the brave Mercier 
whose parishes now number 800, and his parishioners 
2,500,000. At that time he was professor-lecturer and was 
especially interested in standardizing text books for Bel- 
gium. Father Nooy taught in St. Paul Seminary on Sum- 
mit Avenue, was in Walla Walla before coming to Camp 
Lewis January 1, and has been twelve years in the priest- 
hood. 



252 



THE NINETY-FIRST 





CAMP LEWIS 253 

THE 347th light artillery 

Col. R. S, Granger is another who should be a good 
American and a fine officer by this time. Gideon Granger 
was born just before the Revolution, graduated at Yale, 
and hurried into the law at twenty-one as next best fight- 
ing; served several terms in Connecticut legislature, was 
conspicuous in efforts to establish public school funds ; 
and was Postmaster-General for thirteen years. His son 
Francis practiced law in New York where he was long 
a member of the Assembly and prominent in the Anti- 
Masonic movement, went to Congress, and in 1841, he 
became Postmaster-General. Next Gordon Granger, West 
Point graduate, was in siege of Vera Cruz, battles of 
Cerro Gordon and Contreras, and in at the capture of 
Mexico. In 1862 he was appointed Major-General of 
Volunteers, and fought at Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, 
siege of Fort Morgan, capture of Mobile. He was De- 
partment-Commander in Texas and Kentucky. After the 
war he was made Colonel of Infantry, — only distinguished 
oflficers received appointments near to their Volunteer rank. 
His brother Robert, a West Pointer, fought in the Florida 
Indian War, served many years on the frontier when it 
was a frontier, was Colonel of Kentucky Volunteers, Union, 
and in 1871 he was appointed Colonel. 

None of all this said Col. Robert S., son of Gordon 
Granger. A Civil War veteran told it. The Colonel of 
the 347th F. A. was graduated from West Point in time 
to fight in Cuba and saw the United States flag finally 
dismasted — very remarkable, a conquering country's 
voluntary relinquishment of a land. Col. Granger be- 
longed to the 4th Field Artillery. Made Captain in 1905, 
he was Captain of the Quartermaster Corps, in 1915. He 
is a graduate of the Artillery School, and of the Army 
School of the Line. 

Col. Granger came to Camp Lewis August 22, 1917. 
He is very proud of his regiment which is so largely 
composed of Californians that he says they brand with 
that mark any maverick that happens to stray in. He 



254 THE NINETY-FIRST 

insists they can beat anybody, firing anything, from a 
popgun to a three-inch, from an air gun to an automatic, 
from a toy pistol to a — why in two weeks twenty-six out 
of thirty-two became experts at the machine guns. For 
himself, next to cannon balls, the Colonel prefers tennis 
balls. 

The 347th possesses a First among Artillery, a regi- 
mental Machine Shop and Truck School, Col. Granger's 
idea. In this war, more and more, every man must be 
a mechanic, especially in Artillery. The twelve autos 
owned in the regiment primarily suggested the innovation. 
There are thirty-six men in this school, taking a course 
of instruction under Sergeant-of-Ordnance Smith who was 
formerly head of the Studebaker Company, Los Angeles. 
Of course each battery has three mechanics and a supply 
company detachment. Evidently the 347th Truck School, 
if that is its official name, can now make, mend or mar 
anything in that line, since Col. Granger says that when 
Gen. Helmick inspected Camp Lewis, he said the 347th 
Firing Squad fired faster than regular army batteries are 
required to shoot. No wonder Maj. Herring waxes elo- 
quent upon at least one subject. He says men from Camp 
Lewis to Motor or Ordnance Schools conducted at the great 
factories in the East, proved such apt students that they 
were kept for instructors. As fast as motors are built, 
they are driven under their own power by Ordnance men 
to the nearest port of embarcation. These men are en- 
gaged not only in the construction but the standardizing 
and repair of trucks. Ordnance men wear black and red 
hat cords. 

As the 346th had all the three-inch guns for Light 
Artillery work, the 347th borrowed them two mornings 
a week. Proficiency attained is astonishing when one re- 
flects that the majority of the men had never seen a 
cannon fired, nor knew what a caisson was other than 
a trick word for a spelling match. When the war began 
we were short of Artillery Officers. One in the 347th 
F. A. is a veteran of twenty-five years' standing, Maj. 
Frederick L. Taylor. His experience against Spaniards, 



CAMP LEWIS 



255 




MAJ. F. L. TAYLOR 



Moros, Chinese and Villistas, with four wounds to take 
out the romance, will stand him in good stead fighting 
Huns in whom there is none. On the word of a priest, he 
is the best loved man in the regiment, this despite the 
fact that many of the officers are old friends. 

When Mayor Rolph of San Francisco made his famous 
visit to Camp Lewis with a carload of gifts from the 
families and friends of the 5000 San Franciscans there, 
most of them in the 347th F. A. and the 363rd Infantry, 
the former gave him and his wife a huge family dinner 
party, after which, exactly like big boys, they gathered 
around the bandstand and received their gifts direct 
from his hand and messages from his lips. It was like 



256 THE NINETY-FIRST 

a Spring Christmas, that May 7th, and a box Social, and 
a fraternity picnic, all in one. The Mayor had remem- 
bered everybody down to the mascot, who received a box 
of dog biscuits, and who made the customary remark, in 
dog, that it was exactly what he wanted most. 

Though there are many college men in the ranks, a 
post-graduate of Johns Hopkins, a professor of chemistry 
at Tulane University, New Orleans, in the infirmary, the 
men are largely from the trades. "They could build a 
battleship and plumb it." They did build their Assembly 
Hall, with its log pergola and battlemented stone fire- 
place with the iron portcullis, and bookcases suggesting 
the same; wired the ceiling with lights in rows to make 
brilliant their weekly dances, and contrived writing desks 
which drop down for backs to the benches along the walls 
for those dances. They made the great tables for the 
magazines and the handsome large standards for the 
lights upon them, though their lady friends made the 
shades and for the dozens of overhead lights, the curtains, 
the bench cushions (round) and the screens to cut 
off the view of the heaters, all of old rose cotton crepe 
which makes a most artistic combination with the gray 
of the stain. Even the piano is gray and the benches 
built into the four cosy-corners. An Italian, there is an 
entire battery of "Italian Californians" in the 347th, has 
made all the paper racks and other small articles, beside 
the beautiful broad seats, half a great parallelogram 
which faces the fireplace and will accommodate twenty. — 
or thirty who are friends. Biagina has done work worthy 
his name. Everything bears the crossed cannon which 
distinguishes Artillery, and stationery bears the stamp 
of the regiment. The designer of this hall, which is near- 
home for the 347th, was Nathan Gordon of Headquarters 
Co. Each workman gave his "such" so that when the 
regiment left, much personality remained in the artistic 
place to welcome the next comers. The men contributed 
to a fund which paid the bus fare to and from the city 
for parties of young girls, chaperoned by older women, 
for their weekly dances. 



CAMP LEWIS 257 

The 347th has kept itself busy and decorated its sur- 
roundings more than most of the other units. Grass 
was as rare at Camp Lewis as in Cuba all through the 
91st Division's occupancy, but the 347th had a green 
before they left. Capt. C. Z. Sutton of Headquarters Co. 
has taken especial interest in improvements. Private King 
was a landscape gardener, and Capt. Sutton's old home 
was of the loveliest in beautiful Pasadena so that what- 
ever regiment falls heir to the 347th locality, will have 
cause for congratulation. 

Another beauty of the 347th domain is the bandstand 
with its appropriate insignia, in the center of the fire 
break. This stand has been used as altar in three of the 
Firsts of Camp Lewis, Field Mass, Good Friday and Easter 
services. At the Field Mass, even quarantined men were 
allowed, being apart and in the open air. For the Easter 
service the bandstand was covered with green, an altar 
arranged in the center, the three chaplains of the 346th- 
7th-8th F. A., Fathers Nooy, Lacombe and Barron, in 
churchly vestments officiated, twenty-five members of St. 
Patrick's choir, Tacoma, sang, the 348th band played, and 
four men of the Field Artillery, all over six feet tall, Irish 
descent as you might guess from their names, James Ma- 
honey, John Classen, James Daley and Larry Barrett, 
were incense bearers. Father Lacombe had charge of the 
impressive service and the great square was thronged with 
men in uniform who, scattered all over the world — and 
out of it — next Easter will doubtless return in mind and 
in spirit to that gathering. 

Speaking of the four tall incense bearers reminds 
everybody who knows anything of the 347th of the strange 
friendship of the three giant sergeants of Battery B, Ma- 
honey, Barrett and Brudigan, modern Athos, Porthos and 
d'Artagnan, though of the former there is no "little man" 
of Dumas' tale, the shortest being over six feet, the tallest 
six-feet-five. Off duty, one is never seen without the 
others, and they will not be parted. One refused a prof- 
fered appointment to an Oflficers Training School, because 
the other two were not assigned, though it meant his re- 



258 THE NINETY-FIRST 

maining among the non-commissioned. A second would 
not accept a much-desired opportunity to take charge of 
Military Police going to a port of embarcation because 
his friends would be left behind. In writing this book, 
so many, many times the thought has come, if only some- 
body could, and would, take it for text-book, five, ten, 
twenty years hence, and bring it up to date, following it, 
page by page, telling whether projects matured or failed, 
how new ideas and inventions soon became old and were 
superseded, which men went up and which down, lived, 
died; which of the names in that Depot Brigade cabinet 
became the great ones, even what became of these three 
friends and whether they kept together. Just to read 
what you men of the Ninety-First have written upon the 
blank pages, within one year, would be to gain a fascinat- 
ing glimpse into life, which is real History. If "Cupid" 
Munson, former marriage license clerk of San Francisco, 
who has charge of statistics would speak out. If the ''high 
class Sacramento Chinaman" and the "high class technic- 
ian of the Supply Company" would express themselves ! 

And why not? Jot it all down, how you and your 
"bunkies" fared. Later, when censors are no more, write 
it to me. Who knows but there may come a sequel which, 
reversing precedents, shall be so much more worthwhile 
than this book, when, in that glorious peace you go to 
win, we shall sit down in fearless reunion to be happy, 
and rise to work with light hearts. 

There are many huge men in the 347th. One soon 
wore out his shoes in drill over the stones and was con- 
fined to barracks till his No. 13 double E lasts could be 
made to order, as such sizes do not run in Uncle Sam's 
family even though it is a husky one, and its members 
gained from ten to fifteen pounds throughout this per- 
sonel, — perhaps because eleven of them are from famous 
restaurants, drawing up to $150 a month, till they joined 
his family group at Camp Lewis. 

"Battery A, be sure to say, is sure going to batter those 
Germans some. Why they don't need cannon, just fists, 
they're professional prize fighters, the whole bunch. Of 



CAMP LEWIS 



259 




course you know Barthley of Chico, Bert Forbes, Pickles 
Martin" — but I didn't, not one of them. I feel my in- 
significance more every day. I do not even know Ser- 
geant-Major Thomas J. Costello formerly confidential 
agent in the Department of Justice, San Francisco, though 
I don't regret that so much because his department never 
recovered my watch, though I furnished a perfectly good 
picture of the thief. 

This was all but forgotten, "The 347th has the Best 
jazz band on the cantonment." 

Yes, yes for the living, but there is Death too. Lee's 
comrades of the Machine Gun Battalion stopped to think 
of that the day they went as far as the little camp 
cemetery with him upon his long journey to that Far 



260 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Country whence no traveler returns. The band played 
other music now, and as the soldiers marched with arms 
reversed, for peace lies on ahead, out toward the range, 
over beyond the Remount, into the quiet woods and amid 
the sighing fires, there was time and space to remember. 
All his Company and all their officers formed his 
escort. Though he had been but a private, promotion 
had come, and the firing salute was his. Father Dinand's 
words will linger with the gunners, will echo in their 
minds when, continent and sea beyond this quiet grave, 
others of them will fall amid the crash of great artillery 
and shrieking shells, with no music, no word of farewell, 
not even the earth for cover. All these had he, Lee 
Whelan, first to lay him down for aye within the camp, 
first there to be accorded Military Honors at his burial, 
with rites performed by the first priest assigned to this 
cantonment. Rev. Augustine Dinand, S. J. 

The regimental chaplain, Lieut. George Lacombe, is 
American for several generations, though his French name 
means the ravine, a glacial cut in the Alps near Dijon, 
the family birthplace 'way back. He has Irish blood, too, 
as you will guess. His father's father was the first white 
born in San Francisco. George followed his example as 
late as 1886, was educated in the public schools of that 
city, in St. Patrick's Seminary, Menlo Park, ordained in 
1910, took a post-graduate course at Stanford University 
the next year, and was first stationed at St. Mary's 
Cathedral, Menlo Park, afterward at the old Mission 
Dolores, the district from which most of the men of the 
347th were drafted. "Why I knew them all, their famil- 
ies, the very saloons they frequented, the Old Mission 
boys." That knowledge, coupled with his keen sense, of 
humor, is what gives Lieut. Lacombe his hold on the men. 
A chaplain without a sense of humor should resign, or 
rather should never be appointed. A test as to this quali- 
fication should be part of every candidate's examination. 
Father Lacombe speaks French as his mother tongue. 
He has been in the priesthood eight years. 

But Lacombe is as well acquainted in the millionaire 
colony. He is the "Father George" so often mentioned 



CAMP LEWIS 



261 




LEE WHELAN, FIRST TO BE BURTKD AT CAMP LEWIS 



in that delightful Letters of Harry Butters. He was an 
intimate of that family, who figured in the upbuilding of 
the Transvaal. He is a member of the Olympic Club and 
of the exclusive Family Club of San Francisco, the only 
clergyman ever elected to it, though, to its members, the 
term used is, "adopted into the Family." 

As soon as We went into the war Father Lacombe 
applied for a chaplaincy and he insists that the happiest 
day of his life was the day he donned the uniform of his 
country and the next happiest, the day he joined his 
"Mission boys of the 347th at Camp Lewis, Nov. 10, 1917." 

The regimental surgeon, Maj. N. M. Benyas was a 
prominent Portland surgeon. The other medical officers 



262 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CHAPLAIN LACOMBE AND MAJ. BUNYAS 

are First Lieut., now Capt. W. A. Monroe, a Tacoma 
surgeon, Lieut. Partlow, of Olympia, and Lieut. Skaggs, 
from Tennessee. Three of the young officers of the 
347th are locally known. Lieut. Corydon Wagner in- 



CAMP LEWIS 263 

troduced his friend, Lieut. Archibald Munro Edwards of 
Santa Barbara, to his sister Miss Martha, who subse- 
quently changed her name to that of Edwards, and Miss 
Harriet Smith of Tacoma married Lieut. Frank S. Buck- 
ley. Both weddings occured just before the Division lefi 

THE 348th heavy artillery. 

Until this war which, oddly, though four years old, is 
still un-named, battles were fought in the open. At the 
stirring call of the bugles, flags flying before every Com- 
pany, martial bands inspiring the attack. Cavalry rushed 
into action, sabers flashing like steel sunbeams, horses 
eager as riders. Followed Infantry, uniformed in blue, 
red, green, gleaming with brass buttons and buckles, of- 
ficers gay with gold braid, conspicuous with drawn swords. 
All is changed. Behind wire entanglements, like rats in 
traps, burrowed in trenches secret and dark as the forty 
years' preparation of the Germans : in uniforms toned 
to the dun of the earth, with not so much as a shining 
button for fuse, officers like unto men : their swords, sung 
for ages, dull-hanging upon faraway walls : the bugles' 
throat aching with calls they may not sound: for music, 
only the boom of the guns and the shriek of shells, a 
diapason of hate, and not a flag to follow gloriously to 
victory, not one, save the tiny treasured colors in the 
pocket over a soldier's heart ! The Huns have stripped 
War of its last vestiges of Chivalry. 

Today the great guns await the signaled orders from 
the report of aviator scouts to open their terrific bar- 
rage upon the enemy's wire and works. By exact meas- 
urements, a line of guns forms an unbroken screen, which 
batters down everything before it, and behind which 
troops advance, machine-gunners first, to take up the 
fire at closer range. Then grenadiers, automatic riflemen, 
lastly, the body of Infantry, firing their rifles until, close 
to the foe, the fighting is by bayonet, hand to hand. 

The 348th is the Heavy Artillery regiment of the three 
constituting the 166th F. A. Brigade, and is commanded 



264 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




COL. BOTTOMS 



by Col. Samuel F. Bottoms who has been in Artillery 
since his second assignment after graduation from West 
Point in 1897. He was Captain of Artillery Corps 1901, 
Major of Coast Artillery Corps 1907, Quartermaster 1912. 



CAMP LEWIS 265 

He served in the Spanish-American war, remaining in 
the Philippines nearly three years. He had charge of 
the selection of the Second Training Camp Officers at the 
Presidio and came to Camp Lewis the end of August. 
Col. Bottoms is from a family established in Virginia 
long before the Revolution. The uncle for whom he was 
named was a captain of the Civil War, from Kentucky, 
where the Colonel was born. Late in the Spring Col. 
Bottoms attended the Officers School of Fire at Fort Sill. 
Artillery is wonderfully different in this early 20th 
Century from that studied at the First School of Artil- 
lery established early in the 16th Century at Venice. 
Louis XIV. of France started the next; England not 
until 1741, at Woolwich. The first in this Country was 
at Fortress Monroe in 1823, nearly a hundred years ago. 
Col. Bottoms is another who is proud of his regiment 
of Westerners, the majority of whom are ranchers from 
Montana and Utah. Said he, 'They are leaders. Owen 
Wister could find the counterpart of the Virginian in 
every squad of the 348th." When one thinks of such an 
encomium from a Commanding Officer, and hears similar 
comments upon their firing efficiency, noting the eager- 
ness of the men to learn that they may be ready for the 
battlefront, there is no room for doubt as to the issue of 
the war, especially when one recalls the numbers of Prus- 
sian gunners actually found by victors chained to their 
guns. So have the Teutons turned backward two thou- 
sand years and more, to the rowers of the Roman galleys 
coupled to their oars, shackled to their seats. However, 
the sight of those gunners, chained like wild beasts by 
their masters, has done much for victory to the Allies. 
// they ivould do that to their own — .' 

Until motorizing is complete, the guns at Camp Lewis 
are horse-drawn, six horses to a cannon, harnessed, and 
an extra, ridden by a corporal. These animals are, of 
course, the care of the Artillerists. One of these is Wil- 
fred Killham of Battery A, who last year won the title 
of World's Amateur Champion in contest riding at 
Cheyenne's Frontier Days Celebration. His very name is 
a battle cry. 



266 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAMP LEWIS 267 

The 348th boasts many horsemen, some of the famous 
Montana riders not snatched by the Remount, so the 
regiment put on the First Rodeo at Camp Lewis, a great 
success, in the Fall. 

Watching drill with the limbers one day — a limber 
is the two wheels and a harnessing shaft which carries 
the caisson, or ammunition case for a cannon — a heavy 
young fellow was particularly interested and interesting. 
In such drill, "Every little movement has a meaning all 
its own," and this fellow's pleasure in his newly acquired 
agility was apparent. When he had dismounted, run, 
mounted and sat, with his arms folded, before the others, 
a broad grin would spread over his face and run over to 
ours. A youngster like that is chained to his gun by his 
cause. There are eighteen of these caissons to a company, 
two to a section under a sergeant. That smiling young 
fellow will be wearing chevrons by now. Stay-at-homes 
who follow your boys in mind, speak more French than 
some of you know, for so many army words are French — 
chevron is; it means rafters. The connection is not clear 
till you remember it is a heraldry term. When a man 
accomplished some difficult thing he "established his house" 
which, upon his shield, was signified by the two joined 
rafters of a literal roof. In the army, a man's shield is 
now his own good arm, and that is where his chevron is 
placed to show his advance. 

At the battlefront, already, an auto carries ammuni- 
tion as far as possible to the firing line, then caissons 
to the guns, where the men stay to help fire if needed or 
return with empty caissons to refill. I never see cais- 
sons now, or hear the soldiers singing of them in that 
probably oldest song in our army, and naturally a favorite 
in the Artillery, that I do not recall that unknown, curly 
headed fellow — good luck to him! Another stranger 
kindly wrote down the words for me as a rollicking troop 
sang them in passing, and signed the paper, Corp. C. C. 
Proctor, Battery A, 346th F. A. So you may add your 
thanks to mine, for you would like to sing what your boy 
does. None of their marching songs are classic, not even — 



268 THE NINETY-FIRST 

THE CAISSON SONG 

Over hill, over dale, as we hit the dusty trail 

A7id the caissons are rolling along, 
In a?id out, hear them shout, "Counter march" or "Right 
about," 

As the caissons go rolling along. 

Chorus. 

For it's Hi, Hi, Hee; For the Field Artiller-y; 
Sound, off your numbers loud and strong. 
Where'er you go, you ivill always know 
That the caissons are rolli7ig along — 
(Bellowed) Keep Them Rolling — 
That the caissons are rolling along. 



In the stprm in the night, Actioji left or Action Right, 

Still the caissons go rolling along; 
Action Front or Action Rear, prepare to mount, you can- 
noneer, 

As the caissons go rolling along. 

The Heavy Artillery was the heaviest investor, per 
capita, of all Camp Lewis units, to the second Liberty 
Loan. 

Col. Bottoms' regimental officers were working with 
smoke bombs one day, computing ranges. Targets two- 
thousand yards, something over a mile away, showed white 
against a ridge. The telephone section had stretched a 
wire from a nearby tree to a position near the targets. 
A young officer with a small measure stick a few inches 
long would sight the target somewhat in the same way, 
only in a horizontal position, that an artist sizes with his 
brush. He would turn to the telephone box behind him 
and call his conclusions, range, elevation, transverse. The 
operator would then 'phone over to the targets and re- 
peat the directions for target No. 5, say, and the powder 



CAMP LEWIS 269 

at that point would be touched off. A puff of smoke would 
rise, perhaps before, perhaps beyond, the indicated target, 
to the right or the left. If so his "shot" had failed and 
the officer would correct his computations and turn to 
the telephone to announce them. A third trial might 
result in a "shot" striking the target if the smoke-bomb 
rose before it. In the meanwhile all the other officers 
watched closely. Before another man directed the fire, 
the targets, which stood like sign boards, were shifted, 
so that the problem was changed for every man. There 
were fourteen of the smoke pots, with their attendants. 
The amount of powder used in these experimnts is in- 
considerable as compared with cannon shells, yet the 
mathematics involved for the officers, the same. 

If you are allowed upon the Artillery Range, the varied 
training is most interesting to watch. Practice is best, 
because most difficult to compute, in the wind, which ac- 
commodatingly blows often across the prairie. Every 
gun fires a certain projectile at a certain elevation and 
certain range, like every other gun of same model and 
like range, and as this data is all complied and set down 
upon range tables — 

"Simple, isn't it? You just learn your range table 
as you did the multiplication table and" — 

"And it's exactly like predicting what one woman will 
do because you are aware of what another one did under 
similar circumstances: it can't be did." That's what one 
means by being all balled up, and that's what Ballistics 
means, the science of projectiles hurled under all con- 
ditions. The range tables forget, if they ever knew, that 
the earth is round and revolves, and that wind ever blows, 
and a few other such trifles. So every firing party is 
designed to introduce the Artillery man to a new gun- 
woman, to learn her point of view, so to speak. 

From Gen. Burr down, they do not talk on the Artillery 
Range; men do the thinking and let the cannon fire their 
remarks. It is serious business, gunnery, in this war, to be 
learned hard and fast. Most of the practice even for the 
Heavy Artillery regiment has been with the three-inch 



270 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



guns. Thought part of the time four-point-sevens have been 
at camp. Problems are the same. Men have been trained in 
salvo firing which constitutes a barrage when set at com- 
puted distances and simultaneously fired, a fence and de- 
fense of flame, discharging great shells as accurately as 
a sniper's rifle its bullets, though the gunner sights at 
nothing alive, only at an area, and the latter picks his 





THE FIRING SIGNAL 



man. A gunner, second-class, wears a shell upon his 
sleeve for insignia, with a bar below it if he is first-class 
gunner, and a chief mechanic of Field Artillery has a 
palm under the crossed hammers. At camp it was the 
raised arm of the Commanding Officer which was watched. 
When it fell, instantaneously the guns blazed. Of the 
firing records one may not speak, but be it said that the 
166th Field Artillery Brigade will give good account of 
itself in the days to come. 

The Artillerists wish there were a half-tone here of 
the face of one of their young officers "registering be- 
wilderment," one day on the range. Sighting a small 
white house in the distance, he computed an angle, and 
the shot did not strike within a row of apple-trees, or 



CAMP LEWIS 271 

rather an orchard, of the mark. Chagrined, he revised 
the computation which itself was divergent, with result 
even worse. The Battery stood and stared, until a man 
said, "I believe that house is moving." Absurd, agreed 
the others, but they went to see, and that was just what 
was happening. It was in the early days at camp, when 
several small buildings were removed from the reserva- 
tion, and to his relief the Artillery-man found "it was a 
case of government mules, not an Artillery Jackass." 

Leaving the range, it was amusing to hear the rail- 
lery of the red-cord-cannon-men against the blue-cord- 
rifles-men who had been watching, "We'll cover you. In- 
fants. You fellows don't dare poke up your heads till we 
begin firing." Jokes and song help along, the 348th has 
plenty of both. Phil Garn's voice belongs to them, and 
a Colonel with a sense of humor, almost as important as 
logarithms. An old army man, though a young one, the 
Colonel saw enough fun in the first days of the camp to 
keep from exhaustion. The second day, new arrivals were 
lined up, patronizingly watched by veterans of the day 
before. 

"Cover Oflf," shouted the regular army Sergeant. Now 
it seems that means to double lines by every other man's 
stepping to the rear. The recruits stared blankly till the 
inevitable leader, who shortly uprises from any group, 
removed his hat, whereupon the others followed suit, and 
the seasoned soldiers of yesterday guffawed at the ignor- 
ance of "those rookies." 

The story recalls an incident which occurred in the 
early days of the camp when the negro troops were sta- 
tioned there, and which threatened an ignominous death 
to an oflficer of the 348th F. A. Returning from the city, 
he was challenged by a sentry as dark as the night. "Who 
goes there?" He replied. 

"Who goes there?" He replied somewhat impatiently. 

"Who goes there?" 

"What do you mean by challenging me over and over? 
Are you a cuckoo or a sentry?" 

"A sentry, sah, an' ma ohdas am, challenge three times 
an' then shoot," and the gleam on a raised rifle barrel 



272 THE NINETY-FIRST 

indicated that he was about to carry out the second part 
of his "ohdas." 

To return, as the officer did eventually to Artillery, it 
is marvelous what the Ordnance Department has already 
accomplished in supplying all the cantonments and troops 
abroad. Germany had been prepared for more than a 
generation. At first the Allies lacked both guns and 
munitions, so did we, yet United States Representative 
Medill McCormick asserts that at the battle of Chemin 
Des Dames — what a terrible road for the Ladies, even for 
the dauntless Scotch — so dubbed by Teutons — "at Chemin 
Des Dames there was a gun for every three or four 
yards of front attacked, and three artillerymen to every 
two infantrymen engaged.'" When the English fought 
against, instead of with, the French on the Somme, at 
Crecy, nearly five-hundred-seventy years before, the 
former boasted three small brass cannon. 

One of regimental Headquarters group is always, alas 
and alack, the guard house. Its occupants wear blue 
denim, and, if not held for serious offenses, are put to 
work outside, always under guard of a soldier. Military 
Police arrest offenders and march them to another part 
of the camp. Why not place them in the guard house of 
their own company? 

"Because they would be guarded by their fellows in 
that case, and they would not, perhaps, receive the dis- 
cipline intended. Soldiers form strong friendships, it's 
just as well not to tax them. 

Lieut. Stephen F. Barron, chaplain of the 348th, was 
born in San Francisco but at three years taken back to 
his parents' former home in Ireland where his education 
was begun. Returning to California, he attended Sacred 
Heart College and the Seminary at Menlo Park. He has 
been assistant pastor at Centerville and at Holy Redeemer, 
San Francisco. He came as chaplain to Camp Lewis in 
November. Beside his religious work, he organized base- 
ball teams for the 348th, managed several dancing parties, 
put on a play — Not in the Regular Army — he has always 
been interested in drama, and taught English to a class 
of eighty Aliens in the regiment. 



CAMP LEWIS 



273 




LIEUT. STEPHEN BARKUN 



An Artillery Brigade consists of three regiments of 
Artillery and a Trench Mortar Battery. As was shown, 
progressive fire from the lightest — rifle Infantry, and 
automatics, hand grenades and machine guns ; — goes over 
into long-distance heavier work to Trench Mortars, Light 
and Heavy Artillery; in battle, reversing this order by 
hegimiing with demolishing by Heavy Artillery. A Trench 
Mortar does not in the least resemble its name, which 
suggests its first shape when invented near the end of 
the 16th Century, an inverted mortar or bell, firing a large 
round shell which burst when it fell. Instead, a Trench 
Mortar is a short gun, firing bombs instead of cartridges 
like a machine gun, and shooting vertically instead of 
horizontally. Bombs can be fired at great range. In their 

§ 19 



274 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAPT. MAWDSLEY 



long preparation for this war to be "forced" upon them, 
the Germans were supplied with great numbers of this 
terrible ordnance, but the Allies have rushed their manu- 
facture, and training in their use was added to that of 
our National Army. The insignia for Ordnance is a 
bursting bomb — 

"There, I told you that was not intended for a bowl 
of pussy willows, and you said it looked like a Japanese 
bronze bowl, and that the Japanese buttons and cannon 
bear chrysanthemums" — Well, anyway, it's a bomb. 

Capt. Harold Pease commands the 316th Trench Mortar 
Battery of the 166th F. A. Brigade. As this is a new 
development in Ordnance, experts who had distinguished 



CAMP LEWIS 275 

themselves in that service in this war were detailed to 
assist in the training. 

Capt. E. W. Mawdsley of the Manchester Regiment 
and Trench Mortar Battery, with his assistant instructor, 
Sergt. H. Lewis, was assigned to the 166th Brigade. 
Like all the detail, he is young, and a true-to-type 
fighting Briton. Surely the only unsmiling hour he 
ever passed here was that in which this picture was 
taken. He possessed a sense of humor quite Ameri- 
can, which has doubtless pulled him through many a tight 
place. This was shown in a bright talk he gave before 
the Nurses' Association. Wounded severely, he was taken 
to a hospital just behind the lines and a bath ordered for 
him. "Thanks awfully," said I, "But I don't believe I 
can have one, both arms and hands are rather badly hurt. 
But, you know nurses, I had the bath." 

"That evening I was transferred to a hospital further 
back. 'Give him a bath,' said the nurse. But I've just had 
one, said L No go : bath number two. I was taken to 
a seaport to be shipped home and, awaiting the transport, 
the nurse, despite protests I knew to be futile, gave me 
bath number three, within fifteen hours. Crossing the 
channel, one of the men said, 'Mawdsley, lay you a sov- 
ereign we'll have another bath the minute we arrive.' 
That I did not take him showed my wisdom, for a fourth 
bath greeted us, the fourth within twenty-four hours; I 
should have taken a wager that we were the cleanest men 
in the empire." 

Capt. Mawdsley was a great favorite and the officers 
of the Ninety-First had hoped for his company Over-seas, 
but he was ordered to Camp Fremont. Later, then, and 
after the peace! 



276 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ENGINEER CORPS — COL. JEWETT AND HIS COLUMBIA 
RIVER JETTYS — CAPT. POWELL AND THE TOPOGRAPHICAL 
MAP — ENGINEERS' WONDERFUL ACCOMPLISHMENTS — TWO 
ADJUTANTS — TWO DEPARTMENTS ADDED TO ENGINEER 
CORPS — CAPT. KEEN AND BRIDGE WORK — RIFLE-WORK 
AND BEAR-WALKING — FIRST ENGINEER IN GUARD HOUSE 
— PICKED MEN — LIEUT. BATAL — A MULE SKINNER — 
ENGINEER TRAIN AND DEPOT — A LITERAL RETREAT — 
CHAPLAIN LUTZ AND HIS NEW HOPE — GERMAN SENSIBLE. 

Of an Army, that composite body formed of millions 
of individuals, Engineers are the spirit, the genius, the 
innate propelling power. They are both the "engine, any- 
thing used to effect a purpose," and its driver. So wonder- 
ful are their achievements that they might be those of 
genii were it necessary to rise above Man, created "a 
little lower than the angels." Only the fallen need Superman. 

American Engineers were brought up on railroads 
whose difficulties seemed insuperable, spanning canyons, 
climbing mountains, bridging cataracts; upon building 
jettys which say to the Tide, "Thus far shalt thou come 
and no farther," raising a whole city-level and protecting 
it, the only walled city in our free Country, from the Sea 
itself. American Engineers have accomplished what others 
have abandoned in despair, witness the Panama Canal. 
Ingenuity — cousin-word — is a characteristic of the Na- 
tional mind. 

What United States of America Engineers have ac- 
complished abroad during this first year of the war is the 
marvel of Europe, but consider the Corps we have sent 
there. To begin with, honor graduates of the United 



CAMP LEWIS 



277 




CO I.. JEWETT 



States Military Academy, West Pointers which supply our 
regular army with officers, are always appointed in the 
order of their standing, to the Engineers. When the re- 
quired number of Second-Lieutenants has been supplied 



278 THE NINETY-FIRST 

them ; the next ranking graduates are attached to Artil- 
lery. Construction is so much above destruction. 

When a man is Colonel of Engineers, it is safe to look 
up to him as one who has accomplished something for 
the world's betterment, though you would not be apt to 
learn that from him, especially, if he were Col. Henry C. 
Jewett. In his case, ten to one, he would, instead, show 
you a huge topographical map, the work of that depart- 
ment under him, upon which, if you were as dull as I, 
you would gaze admiringly but perplexedly. 

Henry C. Jewett was appointed from New York to 
West Point, from which he was graduated in 1901. Of 
course he was in the Islands, among the Moros, and all 
that, and he was instructor at West Point in chemistry 
and electricity for five years from 1907. He was Major 
before being ordered to organize and command the 316th 
Engineer Corps at Camp Lewis. 

Quite casually. Col. Jewett mentioned that from 1915 
to 1917 he has been engaged upon construction work. 
Well yes, as an Englishman would say, quite so, quite so. 
The fact is, that in those two years he had succeeded in 
redeeming, constructing, completing an all but impossible 
work, the jettys at the mouth of the Columbia River. 
Even American Engineers had hitherto failed upon this 
project which had been begun years ago, but which could 
not withstand the bombardment of waves from without, 
and the internal terredo sappers and miners, like a city 
besieged by aliens and rotten with treason. One does 
not need to be a seaman, but only to have crossed the 
Columbia bar, to know something of the marvel of that 
accomplishment — "From 1915 till 1917? Oh, I was en- 
gaged in construction work." 

One end of this jetty is two and a quarter miles long. 
The old one at the South, which would not withstand the 
terrific wave action, but must and did, is six miles long. 
Hearing of this, a man who had watched construction of 
the Eads jetty of the Mississippi, said that, after a storm, 
he had seen a block of concrete, two and a half by five, 
by a score of feet, which had been bodily lifted by the 
power of the waters. Rubble was used on the Columbia. 



CAMP LEWIS 279 

Col. Jewett looks like the man to pit himself against 
the forces of Nature, tall, sinewy, still, yet with the power 
of a magnet to attract steel to steel. That is why he gets 
so much out of his men, because he gives it. There is 
not an officer in the 316th Engineers that is not a bigger 
man because of association with Col. Jewett, and there is 
not a man in the Corps who has not felt the impulse of 
the organization. That is almost as great an achievement 
as building the Columbia jetty, giving a life-urge to hun- 
dreds of men, hundreds to "carry on." 

No wonder the United States Engineers have done 
decades of work in a twelvemonth in France, fringing sea- 
ports with great piers and wharves, and acres of ware- 
houses; running to them hundreds of miles of railroad 
to convey their American stores to the battle front; build- 
ing bridges and rebuilding before the Huns have scarce 
finished destroying them ; constructing roads whereon the 
Allies' millions may march rapidly to a change of base; 
making ready sanitary camps with sewerage and pure 
water supply, so that this army of ours is the first which 
has not lost more men by disease than by battle and 
wounds ; designing fortifications, emplacements for artil- 
lery and roads to move it to them, trenches; camouflage 
to conceal them all. Shiploads of engineering machinery 
went with our first Engineers. Foresters are cutting trees 
in France and Engineers superintending building canton- 
ments, hospitals, etc., and electric lighting for them. That 
verse in the Bible which was so hard to believe is easy 
now, "If ye have faith — ye shall say unto this mountain, 
be ye removed." Engineers have both faith and works, 
and when the 316th goes across there will be a distinct 
addition to both. 

For the most part, the men of the 316th Engineer 
Corps enlisted at once, resigning good positions, some 
very important ones drawing large salaries, to go as pri- 
vate, knowing the crying need for Engineers, Civil as 
well as Military, and the long technical training involved. 
Whole Companies are college graduates. 

The castle which distinguishes the Engineers is one 
of the oldest of Army insignia, of which, to a man, they 



280 THE NINETY-FIRST 

are very proud. This makes it particularly funny, the 
story an Infantry-man told. It seems a "rookie" at work 
in a nearby corral had not secured the insignia which 
should mark him, and was told he must get one at once. 
The next day one of the Engineer officers noticed the 
"mule-skinner" wearing a castle and inquired, "What are 
you doing with that castle? You're not an Engineer." 

"Castle? Castle, why I thought it was a stable." 

Lt. Col. A. R. Ehrnbeck, since Colonel, was in charge 
of the preliminary engineering work in building the can- 
tonment, remaining until Spring. You, little school boy, 
grumbling over the hated map making, what would you 
say to one which shows every building in Camp Lewis 
city, down to a coalshed? If you want to belong to the 
Engineer Corps which is doing such wonders, you must 
conquer, if not love, your enemy, that map, for the United 
States has thousands put away for emergencies. If you 
were with Engineers at the Front, you would be risking 
your life to seek out the lay of the land, to survey it and 
draw maps of it that you might prepare most direct roads 
for the rushing army, avoiding impediments and enemy 
connections; discovering water supplies which your genius 
would secure, and lowlands which must be drained before 
troops come; calculating the slope for sewerage — for arm- 
ies in these days do not lie down in marshes as during 
the Civil War they might, if the ironic order rang there, 
"Halt and make yourselves comfortable for the night." 

"Oh, but that's different" — not a bit, maps are used 
in laying out camps, did you read how Col. Ehrnbeck con- 
trived this one? Maps are used every day, trenches and 
fortifications are first dug and built on paper. Maps are 
shorthand notes for volumes of information. 

Now, Small Boy and Big Boy, you will have more com- 
prehension of the work of the Topographical Department 
of the Engineers Corps of the 316th under Capt. Orman 
Nimmons Powell, which department Col. Erhnbeck said 
he considers the best of its kind in the Country. There 
were several camps, as at Roy, and Nisqually where, the 
Indians had complained, the cantonment was infringing 



CAMP LEWIS 



281 




CAPT. POWELL 



upon their lands and the Engineers went to map and prove. 
This locality is like the celebrated Lake Region of Scotland 
and several of the little lakes had never been named. The 
mappers were told there must be names upon their drafts 
so they called them, as Indians used, from resemblances, 
Foot, and the like. Men at these little camps lived in tents 
away from the cantonment and there did the work as- 
signed them, a copy of which remains to Camp Lewis. 

Capt. Powell is from Georgia, where his family have 
lived in one place for generations. The first in this Coun- 
try, Capt. William Powell, was killed in 1622 in an up- 
rising; another, Col. John. P. Williams, fought in the 
Revolution, as did Capt. John Cowart who was one of 



282 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Lafayette's Expeditionary Force in aid of America, as 
Capt. Powell is of the American Expeditionary Force in 
aid of France, nearly two centuries later. His grand- 
father was Captain in the Civil War, and his father, Capt. 
John S. Powell, fought in Cuba and the Philippines. His 
family on his mother's side was represented in the Revolu- 
tionary War and down, with a Maj. Storey in Indian wars, 
a Maj .-Gen. Storey in the Indian and the Mexican wars, 
and with several, on both sides of the family, officers in 
the Confederacy. But, as someone has said, "Blue + Gray 
= Khaki." In the case of Capt. Powell of the 316th it 
is true. His father remained in the Philippines for years 
as Judge of the Supreme Court, and the son, who had 
been graduated from the Alabama Polytechnic in both 
civil and mining engineering, went there and remained for 
six years in government engineering work, though not in 
the army. 

He was engaged in like work in New Mexico, through 
the fascinating old Pueblo and Cliffdweller region, when 
the United States entered the war. He wrote to Wash- 
ington at once offering his services and was told to attend 
the Presidio Training Camp, whence he issued Captain of 
Engineers, coming at once to Camp Lewis, where he was 
made Chief of the Topographical Department. And Capt. 
Powell, despite his gray hair, is but thirty-one. 

One phase of his work is preparing maps for the In- 
telligence officers from which to make out their scouting 
problems. Men have worked for sixteen miles around 
Camp Lewis and up the Nisqually with its superb canyon 
and wire cable cage, like that used over great gorges by 
the Italians in this war. The Engineers also mapped for 
Company and Regimental hikes and the Division Practice 
March. At the Front the obtaining of Military maps is 
one of the exciting parts of their many-sided work. 

The principal thing accomplished by Capt. Powell's 
department, however, was that immense topographical 
map, twelve by sixteen feet, which v/as completed during 
the training of the 316th. This map showing "the contour 
of the earth upon a plane surface," resembles — the En- 



CAMP LEWIS 283 

gineer Corps will resent this, — one of those economical 
magazine patterns which have all their parts traced upon 
one bewildering sheet. I always respected a person who 
could understand that pattern, so to gain information from 
a topographical map seems almost as wonderful as tech- 
nical surveying, reducing to scale of 400 feet to the inch, 
and drawing one. What can be the use of showing every 
five-foot rise of ground if you don't expect to fight over it, 
legally or otherwise? Still the Belgians did not expect 
to fight over their country either, and trust the Engineers 
for knowing their own business and energetically attend- 
ing to it. Why even their mascot is named Joff"re. The 
Engineers say they have been so busy that, except for 
their one handsome dance, they have not been able to 
enjoy the frequent socialities of some units. Probably 
this accounts for Joffre's uncompromising attitude toward 
women. He should have been named Kitchener, for, amia- 
ble to a fault with men, he is all but vicious to any- 
thing in skirt. Capt. Powell will admit that Joffre is 
amiable to a fault because his was the only door in of- 
ficers' quarters which will push open, and Joff're, having 
discovered this, persists in bunking with the Captain, who 
regrets that he will not be able to take Joffre to France 
for a footwarmer in the trenches. 

Capt. Jules E. Hanique was Adjutant of the 316th 
until its departure, when Capt. Powell was assigned to 
that office. The former was born in Paris and speaks 
Flemish as well as French. He was one of the board to 
examine men of the Division for fitness in Interpreter 
Service overseas. 

It was through this interpeter's corps that Eugene 
Malfait, after wearisome waiting, obtained his chance for 
active service overseas. He has a terrible account to 
settle, beyond one man's power, but he is one man who 
will give his life to it. Born in Belgium, he had, when 
war broke out, more than eighty relatives living there, 
many of them prominent in official life, some in literature 
and art. He was a postman in Tacoma. Malfait en- 
deavored to trace those relatives and learned that but two 



284 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAMP LEWIS 285 

remained, both in a French asylum, the mother, wife of 
the mayor of a Belgium town, was insane from horrors 
and loss, and her daughter was with her, while all the 
rest were either dead or prisoners in Germany. He en- 
listed with an ambulance Company, expecting to go at 
once to France. Instead, he was ordered to Camp Lewis 
Base Hospital, and detailed as postmaster there! This 
was hard, but Sergeant Malfait bided his time, and when 
the Interpreters' Board invited applicants, he was exam- 
ined and obtained a Second-Lieutenant's commission. Now 
he will begin paying his debt to the Hun. 

Adjutant Hanique was the only unenthusiastic En- 
gineer. "Build a bridge," they tell us. But there is neither 
wood nor stone at hand. ''Build that bridge!" Well, isn't 
that the wonderful thing about being an Engineer, con- 
triving, doing things one way if you can't another, able 
to "make bricks without straw." Their accomplishments 
recall the assurance of a courtier to Louis XIV, "Sire" — 
just drop the e for equals — "if it is possible it shall be 
done today; if it is impossible, tomorrow." 

Speaking of Adjutants recalls Adjutant Brizou, one of 
the French instructors assigned to the 316th as expert on 
bridges. Everybody asks of what organization he is Ad- 
jutant. It seems that in the French army it is not an 
office but a rank, and that a queer one, for he is neither 
a commissioned nor a non-commissioned officer, betwixt 
and between for honor. He is a veteran of the early days 
of the great war and decorated, as all the French detail, 
for bravery. He is of the 6 me Genie in his own country. 
Their word for Engineers shows plainly the connection 
with genius and ingenuity. It seems odd that in this 
branch, the United States army should need instruction; 
still, this war is new to every phase of destruction, and 
construction must keep rapid pace with it. 

Col. Jewett grouped the activities of the Engineer 
Corps into recognizance, bridgework, fortifications and 
demolition. But as if the multitudinous affairs so classi- 
fied were not enough, two other departments have been 
added to the Engineers. Training troops in the military 



286 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




ADJ. BRIZOU 



use of poisonous gases has been transferred from the 
Medical Department to them ; and a unit new to all armies 
has been added, the Tank. It certainly is not a classic 
name, and its insignia, the same, must look like a ranch 
tractor. They say the Britishers burst into shouts of 
laughter when the first ones came lumbering along, but 
the Germans did not join in the merriment. As usual, they 
made frantic attempts to capture a tank to copy and adapt. 
Our ordnance department has been secretly building great- 
ly improved tanks, those terrible running forts, those 
landships armored and belching destruction from every 
port hole. 

Capt. Powell's department would be included in the 
first, recognizance, meaning, literally, to know again. En- 
gineers seek information and map it for use in military 
movements and stratagems. 

Bridge work of the 316th Engineers was in charge 
of Capt. Leavell at the first, but he was ill all Winter and 
his place was taken by Lieut. Delprat Keen, who was 



CAMP LEWIS 287 

promoted to the Captaincy in time to take his company 
to France. Delprat Keen was a graduate of Stadium High 
School, Tacoma, so young that he was kept out of school 
for a year before entering Yale, from which, Sheffield, 
he was graduated when but twenty years old. He im- 
mediately entered upon responsible engineering positions. 
Feling that the United States would soon be at war and 
eager to be in at the first, he joined the Coast Artillery. 
He was advised to enter the Presidio and did so, coming 
to Camp Lewis as First-Lieutenant 

It was "more like it" in Spring, when men who had 
begun with regular Infantry drill, next constructing 
bridges over nearby rivers, went to American Lake and 
built their first pontoon bridges. First they must learn 
to manage the flat boats upon which the bridge is laid 
and some of the men had never held an oar, as, at the 
beginning, many had never shot a rifle. "You would never 
have guessed it, though," boasted Lieut. Keen, "why, after 
only a few days' practice, some of those fellows made 47 
in 50 at 500 yards, then 45 in 50 at 600 yards, and 15 
of 20 struck the bullseye." 

"How big was a bullseye at that range? Oh, about 
front-sight size. That's some shooting, at the start. They 
did better, some of them. Those Enfield's are the gun," 

American markmanship has been notable since pre- 
Revolutionary days when sniping Indians was in vogue. 
You remember Daniel Boone and his musket so sure that 
the very squirrel knew it and called out "Don't shoot. 
I'll come down." By the way, a lineal descendant of his, 
Boone's not the squirrel's, was a corporal at Camp Lewis 
for awhile, Clarence Boone of the 316th Engineers. Men 
of this West with their chance at nearby big game, would 
naturally lead in this, and the frequency of the badges 
for markmanship upon blouses shows that they do. In 
the Spring, each Infantry regiment had a fortnight's shoot- 
ing on the range, in "second line" trenches with sandbags 
half way to the top and a firing step about four and a 
half feet down. So many of the Ninety-First are tall men 
that it seems they will be obliged to use a trench length- 



288 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAPT. DELPRAT KEEN 



CAMP LEWIS 289 

wise. One day I saw six officers talking together at 
Hostess House. The shortest was six feet-two, the tallest 
six-feet-seven. 

All Engineers have rifle practice, but only eighty-nine 
out of one-hundred-fifty carry arms. They are not sup- 
posed to fight men, but forces: earth, water, fire, disease, 
difficulties; to surmount opposing Brains rather than go 
Over the Top, yet they are always in danger, since even 
if constructing far from the battleline, what they do is 
always something the enemy wish undone, and they are 
watched. So I, for one, remember with a thrill an officer 
of our earliest Engineers saying simply when the battle 
needed a hand, '*Hey, boys, we've got to get into this," 
and they threw down their tools and rushed into the fray. 

What men dislike most is "bear-walking", back-break- 
ing as it is to the usually tall men of our army, many 
of whom stand several inches above the six-foot trenches. 
They must stoop enough to clasp their ankles, and becom- 
ing expert in this trench walk is a matter of life and death. 
Lieut. Keen appreciated all this, he is three inches above 
the trench top himself. One day drilling his men 
at bear-walking he called out cheerily, "Let's all grunt 
and growl; we'll all be bears," and grasping his 
own ankles the handsome young officer led off ferociously. 
All were boys, or grew boys again, and with an accompani- 
ment of noise that would have scared a Kodiak bear stiff, 
that company remained double longer than ever before. 
Delprat wasn't named Keen for nothing, Americans can do 
anything for fun. And that understanding and comrad- 
ery, coupled with their knowledge of his ability, are what 
helped the young Lieutenant, in a difficult situation as 
acting Captain. 

The company took great pride in their record of not 
one man in the guard house all Winter, even for the slight- 
est infraction of discipline. In the Spring, a man over- 
stayed his leave. Keen reprimanded him and warned him 
not to repeat the offense, but a fortnight later, he did. 
This time it was the guard house. The men were furious ; 
all right enough for the Brigades, but Engineers! They all 

§ 20 



290 THE NINETY-FIRST 

but mobbed him, while their language was both strong 
and fluent. In fact they used so much, that none of them 
had a single word left for him for weeks. He was com- 
pletely ostracized; in the vernacular, he did not belong. 

One day a private came upon business to Lieut. Keen 
who remarked, "You look familiar, have I ever known you?" 

"Well Dink, you were not in my class there, but" — 

"Sheffield," ejaculated Keen at sound of his old Yale 
name, "what luck!" and the grip was warm. Such occur- 
rences are common at Camp Lewis. 

Lieut. Keen was associated with Adj. Brizou in bridge 
work, — Captain Keen now, and of Engineers, at twenty- 
six. In an early military exhibition at Camp Lewis, the 
Engineers gave an exhibition of speed and skill in bridge- 
building, strength of the hurried work being proved by 
the crossing of heavy equipment wagons. 

The district officer at Portland examined recruits with 
reference to their fitness for special branches of the Ser- 
vice. Then, too, men were selected from the regiments 
on the cantonment when found with training, trades, or 
qualifications for the Engineers. Their work was in- 
tensive; line officers studied two evenings a week and non- 
commissioned officers, four. 

A brave and distinguished man is the French officer. 
Lieutenant, afterward Captain, Batal, who fought in all 
the early terrible days of the war. Asked about the Marne, 
the smile dies from his face and that set look which some 
who fought there never lose, returns. How one wishes 
to be able to visualize the historic battles and the heroism 
in them which fastened to Lieut. Batal's uniform of hori- 
zon blue those two decorations, the War Cross and the 
rarer Military Medal, both of which he wears. He is 
the only officer in the French Detail awarded the latter, 
and it is significant that he also is an Engineer, of France, 
and was assigned to that Corps at Camp Lewis — Oh, you 
men of the 91st Division, you certainly have been fortunate 
in every way. Of them to whom much has been given, much 
will be required, but we of your Northwest have supreme 
faith in you. We shall watch you with solemn pride. 



CAMP LEWIS 



291 




CAPT. BATAL, 



Lieut. Batal was instructor of the fortifications division 
for the 316th Engineers. Nothing to equal the scope, 
activity and resource necessary in the area of this war 
has ever taxed Engineers before, since the Great Engineer 
finished His Six Days' World-Work and rested upon His 
Sabbath. All "impregnable" fortresses and fortifications 
have long ago been utterly destroyed. Strongholds must 
now be literally places strongly held, principally emplace- 
ments for artillery. Lieut. Batal's experiences are in- 
valuable to our Division. That he is a highly educated 
man goes without saying and he is also more — well, com- 
rade-y, than some of the detail. When the Ninety-First 
went out, Capt. Batal remained at Camp Lewis and 
became Instructor in the Fourth Oflficers Training Camp 
there. 

Capt. Harmon Bonte is of an old California family, 
his Grandfather the Episcopalian Bishop known through- 
out the State; but he himself is better known in connec- 



292 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



tion with big mining operations in Utah, and important 
engineering work in Alaska, which he abandoned at once 
to enter the army. Though widely known by what he had 
already accomplished, Capt, Bonte, is another young man, 
only thirty-six, about Capt. Batal's age, one would guess. 

Lieut. Carrick was in charge of excavating the dug- 
outs of No Man's Land up on the bluff. This gives you 
a good idea of doorway for gas protection. I was amused 




DUGOUT 



at the answer of one of the young fellows, "Why no, we 
didn't dig it, the doughboys do that." Well, he will be 
very apt to do it in France, where our Americanism, 
"Dig in", has become literal. 

There was a private in the 316th, who found himself 
a square peg in a round hole. He had been a cowpuncher, 
came from the Imperial Valley, and was so accustomed 
to riding that all he had feet for was to fasten spurs to. 
He was tall and lanky, and the drill, though he never 
complained, was hard upon him, so one day his Captain 



CAMP LEWIS 293 

asked if he could drive mules. "Drive! Why I can drive 
thirty teams with reins, and as many mules as I can see, 
with a jerk-line!" He was given the corral. 

Col. Jewett is, beside Corps Commander, Division En- 
gineer, thus in charge of the Engineer Train, which car- 
ries tools and everything needed by the Corps at the 
Front, although it, too, as one of the Trains, is connected 
with Col. Saville's Department. They overlap, as does 
the Ammunition Train, into Artillery, which it supplies. 
Engineers and Artillery are affiliated in Service. First- 
Lieutenant E. L. Norberg is head of the Division En- 
gineer Train. 

Col. Jewett has also general supervision over the De- 
tachment of the 420th Engineers Depot, which, like all 
depots, does not belong to the Division, though the men 
hope to be ordered to the Front. Capt. V. C. Suckow is 
Commanding Officer of the twenty-three men who con- 
stitute the force, with one Lieutenant, A. J. Stern. The 
Captain is another big man, physically and mentally. The 
91st Division is noted throughout for its tall men, but it 
seems as if in the Engineers all are tall. 

This beautiful arch of small logs was the first built 
at the cantonment. It was designed and built by the 
depot men, who also bounded their grounds and gardens 
with sapling-rails, made flower boxes for all their windows, 
a pergola and a lattice of small boughs, which are the envy 
of everybody who passes. They had grass, too, and grass 
that first year, was scarce enough to be mentioned. Their 
flowers were very cheery in the Spring of 1918. The 
depot force also formed a Y of walks which were of gravel, 
not rocks, upon which they stood for Retreat. 

Speaking of Retreat makes the men near there — for 
the Trains adjoin the depot — smile. One afternoon a 
woman, unused to cantonment customs, was walking past 
a Company drawn up to pay respect to the Colors about 
to be lowered. As ijou know, she should have remained 
standing, silent, where she was when the bugle sounded 
Retreat, but she came on till a Sergeant, not so courteous 
as his Colonel would have been, yelled ''Madam, Retreat." 



294 



THE NINETy-FIRST 




CAMP LEWIS 295 

Startled, she began the only retreat in her ken, backing 
and backing, till, before the entire Company, all making 
believe they were not there, she abruptly sat down upon 
a rock pile, one white shoe in the air like a flag of truce. 

A flag of truce, by the way, is the only article not 
furnished Engineers by this 420th Depot. Every tool and 
instrument is in charge of it and given out as needed. 

The 316th Engineer Corps' Chaplain is Milton C. 
Lutz, born near Nuremberg, Schuylkill County, Penn, 
His great-grandfather. Christian Lutz, was a veteran of 
the Revolutionary war, who settled there, so Lutz and 
Nuremberg and Schuykill do not spell Germany. Lieut. 
Lutz' education began in the public schools. A teacher's 
course in the East Stroudsburg Normal school followed, 
and a literary scientific course in the Bloomsburg State 
Literary Institute, after which he moved to Chicago and 
took up Theological studies. Licensed, he preached at 
the same time. Theology was followed under the personal 
instruction of Dr. A. E. Wright, founder and president 
of Grace Bibical Institute. Advanced work gave him the 
degree of D. D. While serving as pastor he took special 
work in the University of California and in Whitman 
College, Washington. 

While pastor at Live Oak, California he was also Chief 
Probation Officer of The Juvenile Court of Sutter County, 
for six years. While serving as pastor at Walla Walla, 
Washington, he received the appointment of Chaplain, Jan- 
uary, 1918, and was assigned to the 316th Engineers. 
He is a member of ''The Church of the United Brethren 
in Christ." 

Asked the peculiarities of the sect, he replied that 
it had none, that it was organized in Isaac Long's barn 
in 1757 a-purpose to teach a simplified faith, Otterbein 
being its first exponent. Chaplain Lutz says this church 
was the pioneer in fighting both slavery and liquor. The 
Chaplain's first name, Milton, perhaps tended him toward 
poetry. However that maybe, he hopes to complete a 
volume of verses in that blessed "After the war." A little 
daughter was added to his flock just as her father left 
for France, a child he will never have seen until that time. 



296 



THE NINETY-FIRST 





"Let me see, what is hope in the language of the France 
I am starting for? What? Esperance? I shall ask her 
mother to name the baby that." 

Lieut. Lutz speaks German, and, aided by Maj. Post 
of the 316th has organized a class for the study of that 
very necessary language among men who could learn so 
much of value to our army if when reconnoitering, they 
could understand the Germans they overhear, or, endan- 
gered, could answer readily in the language of the foe. 
Quite a number of the officers of the 316th have joined 
the class. 

Chaplain Lutz has charge of educational work among 
the enlisted men, also of the Corps postoffice, beside the 
usual visiting the sick and conducting services. 



CAMP LEWIS 297 

When the 316th Engineers go to their great Service 
in France, their home people will follow them with pride 
and await them with — 

ESPERANCE. 



298 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE MILITARY POLICE — ITS C. 0. COL. SAVILLE — DRINK AND 
GAMBLING TABOO — CAPT. THORNBERRY — LT. COL. ALLEN 
— AMMUNITION, SUPPLY, ENGINEER TRAINS — CHAPLAIN 
REXROAD — THE SANITARY TRAIN AND LT. COL. REYNOLDS 
— MASONIC AMBULANCE CO. — PORTLAND'S LARGE PART 
IN MEDICAL WAR — FIELD HOSPITALS — THE ELK'S UNIT 
— DENTAL INFIRMARY — MAJ. SMITH AND PHYCHIATRY — 
UNITED STATES FIRST DECLARE WAR UPON SYPHILIS. 

Probably no other branch of the army is so little 
understood as that of the Military Police, two of the rea- 
sons being that much of its important work is secret, and 
that it is new, initiated by Americans, but adopted by our 
Allies across the water, almost before it had been consoli- 
dated in this country. There is now an Officers School for 
Military Police at Jacksonville, Florida. It polices can- 
tonments for its contributing zone, supervises road and 
bus traffic for speeding and crowding, having eight motor- 
cycles for that purpose, arrests soldiers or civilians em- 
ployed at camp when absent without authority, or law- 
breakers ; keeps a list of camp retainers and an eye upon 
their conduct, takes charge of prisoners and conducts 
them to confinement after sentence, "takes up or runs 
out undesirable camp followers, detects spies, finds and 
returns foolish young girls, polices railway stations, 
watches hotels, public utilities and military stores, etc." 

In war, all these duties and countless others, are theirs. 
The Military Police also protect telegraph wires, keep 
roads to the front clear, watch inhabitants, prevent spy- 
ing, and take charge of prisoners of war, in short, in camp 
and field, guard, protect, detect, arrest, keeping both High- 



CAMP LEWIS 299 

ways and Byways clear to Liberty, and blocking them to 
License. 

Again have Camp Lewis and the 91st been fortunate 
in the Commanding Officer of this extremely important 
Service, Col, M. E. Saville. They owe him much more 
than they will ever know, and the people of the North- 
west are greatly in his debt. He has been invaluable in 
aiding near-by cities to rid themselves of the thousands 
of undesirables who invariably flock about an army camp 
like vultures over a battlefield, for, wherever soldiers on 
leave go, the field of the Military Police extends. For 
instance, following a military order issued upon all hotels, 
barber-shops, restaurants, fruit stands etc. in Tacoma, for 
examination of their employees, it was found that some 
had not complied, forgetting they were dealing with the 
United States Army. Military Police were posted at their 
doors, no soldier was allowed to enter, and if within one 
was "right in the middle of perfectly good chocolate pie, 
it was beat it." A corps of them has been regularly sta- 
tioned in nearby cities, with wonderful lessening of im- 
morality and crime, for politics may, and does, often in- 
terfere in civil justice, to our shame be it acknowledged, 
but there is no nonsense about military trials. Many peo- 
ple dreaded the advent of the troops, but. under Col. Sa- 
ville, Camp Lewis has been safer and cleaner than any 
civilian settlement of its size in the world, a broad state- 
ment, but one vertified by records. They have been safe- 
guarded from without and, as far as humanly possible, 
protected from themselves. 

Col. Saville is a great big, keen, kindly, fun-loving, 
understanding sort of man. Even in the picture you will 
see it would be of no use to try to hoodwink him, and 
that "His eyes is sot;" but it is easy to see why his men 
swear by him instead of at him. He started out to make 
Camp Lewis the cleanest camp on earth, and he seems to 
have done it. He is an old army man of thirty years' 
service, born in Missouri, graduated from the U. S. Mili- 
tary Academy in 1893, connected with 22nd, 13th, 10th, 
and 14th Infantry Regiments. He served at Santiago 



300 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




COL. SAVILLE 



de CuJ:>a and wears a wound chevron. He has served 
principally in the West, four times in Cuba and once 
in Alaska. He also served on the Border as a line officer, 
and in the Quartermaster's Department. When the 91st 



CAMP LEWIS 301 

Division was organized, Col. Saville was stationed in 
Alaska and was one of the first officers to report at Camp 
Lewis, being assigned to command of the Divisional Trains 
and Military Police. As soon as the selective draft men 
began to arrive, he hand-picked a number of men, organ- 
ized the Military Police, and began work. At that time 
the underworld was attracted to the Camp in large num- 
bers. Col. Saville soon organized the community in such 
a way that effective means were at hand for the preven- 
tion of vice-producing establishments and of all forms 
of degeneracy usually attracted to Army camps. High 
ideals set forth by the Commanding General were made 
realities and extended to near-by communities. 

Thousands of prostitutes arrived — and departed, speed- 
ed by the Military Police. Several of these vampires were 
found to have been hired by Austrians to spread their 
unspeakable disease among Camp Lewis soldiers, a branch 
of war service distinctly Hunnish. Still, many a soldier, 
sworn to give his life if need be to his Country, has in 
this way not only deserted to the enemy but has taken 
his comrades with him, for Sir William Osier calls "Syp- 
hilis an easy first among infections." Such a soldier is a 
traitor. 

Among other duties of the Military Police have been 
those necessary to the keeping of inhabitants loyal. These 
very efficient Military Police have succeeded in suppres- 
sing and driving to cover the sabotage, disloyal or sedi- 
tious activities that were common in the Northwest. This 
work has been constructive and has required finesse and 
acumen to avoid the political pitfalls that have developed 
from time to time. Col. Saville's influence with Organized 
Labor Organizations, together with his active endeavor 
with the loyal elements throughout the Northwest, has 
resulted in his name being a dread to law-breakers gener- 
ally. To him is largely due the cleaning out of that trait- 
orous organization whose very name is misleading and 
should stand for I Won't Work. At the end of January, 
a well-forward plot to organize soldiers at Camp Lewis 
into L W. W.'s, to frustrate war plans, was discovered, and 



302 THE NINETY-FIRST 

seven leaders were arrested by Military Police. A bright 
young fellow named Jack Vosburg, who had, by the way, 
so far played leading man's parts in moving pictures, 
in this plot took following man's, sleeping in the bunk 
house with the I. W. W.'s, where he heard a characteristic 
"leader" from one: ''The three most dangerous thiyigs 
to the ivorkers' progress are religioyi, patriotism, and 
autocracy." He went on to say: 

"They talk about the I. W. W. being destroyers of 
property. Who has more right? Did not the I. W. W. 
build it? I want to see the day (and I know it will come 
— and after that day I am content to die) when we will 
overthrow the capitalists and the autocracy. They arrest 
our speakers and stop our papers, but we have them 
printed and go along just the same. That is why they 
want to down us. Now is the time to strike for they have 
their hands full with this war. If we don't receive any 
gain ourselves, what is the use of fighting; Germans are 
just as good as we are. The only way is for the men to 
refuse to go to war. If we all get together we can pre- 
vent it." 

— and the men exchanged seditious remarks which were 
brought against them in their trial. 

During the time that Col. Saville was protecting the 
ban on a near-by community, it happened that one of the 
recalcitrants of the existing vice and seditious rings visited 
him at Military Police Headquarters and, glancing at a 
soldier in the outer office said, "That man's face is famil- 
iar, who is he?" 

"My orderly," replied the Colonel, "and your chaifeur 
for two weeks." The visitor made a very short stay, 
it would hardly seem to have paid him to have come so 
far simply to remark about the weather and the beauties 
of Camp Lewis, the only topics touched upon after the 
silence which fell. 

The Colonel is descended from the First Earl of Hast- 
ings, the French Saville who went over with William the 
Conqueror to England, and the men of his family have 
been fighting pretty much ever since, so that fighting is 



CAMP LEWIS 303 

in his blood. His ancestors in this country were Revolu- 
tionary, 1812, Mexican, and Civil War Veterans, promin- 
ent in the settlement of New Jersey and Northwest Ter- 
ritory. He married Cora Gordon in 1896. Her forebears 
also fought in all this country's wars, so that it was a 
foregone conclusion that their two sons should enter the 
Service. Wilson, named for an early superintendent of 
the United States Military Academy at West Point, finished 
his second year there in time to spend a few days with 
his father just leaving for France, and Gordon is destined 
for Annapolis and the Navy. So the Saville's are another 
All-Service family, for Mrs. Saville has devoted one entire 
day a week throughout the Winter to Red Cross work, 
conducting, in conjunction with Mrs. Seebach, wife of 
Major Seebach of the Trains, a large class in surgical 
dressings, and allowing nothing to interfere with it. 

The United States is still a pioneering country, has 
always struck out new paths. A navy without grog would 
not float, other nations held ; an army without liquor would 
be dry enough to blow up. This Country calmly ordered 
discontinuance of rationing, and emptying of canteens, 
but the spirit of the service has only gained by dropping 
the s, singular as that sounds. In fact, it is the principal 
reason why Camp Lewis had had no trouble. The Mili- 
tary Police have been most vigilant against that thief 
"which men put into their mouths to steal away their 
brains." It is noteworthy that when Captain, afterward 
Admiral, Wilkes sent out the exploring party from his 
ship which traversed this campsite in 1841, he anticipated 
this order, a strange thing in those bibulous times. He 
says in his "Narrative:" 

"K7ioiving how much time is lost ton boat expeditions 
by the use of grog, ayul the accidents that are liable to 
occur when a strict ivatch cannot be kept over it, I de- 
cided not to send any spirits with the party. I am fully 
persuaded myself that that portion of the ration is un- 
necessary, but in order not to deprive any \of the sailors 
of it tvho might deem it essential, I had the boats' creics 
called aft and. found that nearly all were in the regular 
habit of drawing their grog. I then offered to any who 



304 THE NINETY-FIRST 

might ivish to C07iti7iue the use of that part of their ration, 
the option of remaining ivith the ship and haviyig their 
places supplied by others. There was no hesitation on the 
part of any, ivho all decided to go." 

Wilkes was not alone, even in that day, in his opin- 
ions, for Dr. McLaughlin, Hudson Bay Factor at Nisqually 
close by, purchased the entire cargo of rum brought by 
the brig T. H. Perkins, that it might not be purveyed to 
his post, where spirits were strictly forbidden. 

Gambling, another vice of former armies, is strictly 
tabooed now: spells courtmartial ; and the Military Police 
have another thing to watch for. In peace times, drink- 
ing and gambling were the principal recreations of the 
old army. Their places have been more than filled by 
the constant and varied amusements supplied to the new. 
Results are notable. For instance, Col. Saville took several 
carloads of soldiers from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic, 
not posting a single guard, without a suggestion of trouble 
or a trace of rowdyism among them. At Spokane, Chi- 
cago, and Philadelphia, they had several hours' leave. 
Not one took advantage of his liberty but all were present 
at roll-call. Think what such a journey would have meant 
in old days, or for that matter, contrast it with the short 
trip which doubtless brought some of those very men to 
camp last Fall, when drinking and quarreling finally nearly 
resulted in the death of the porter. So recalling what 
Col. Saville once said of the Military Police : "Others build 
something visible, our work is invisible," one cannot agree. 

Speaking of activities which fill the soldiers* leisure, 
recalls the opening of the new, Y-8, used by the Military 
Police. Col. Saville presided over the dedication with wit 
and appreciation, accepting the building in behalf of his 
command, urging them to enjoy its pleasures and op- 
portunities to the full, and praising the work of the Y, 
M. C. A. The fine musical program included several 
selections upon a superb harp, played by a Y-man, McBain 
Milne, former harp soloist of Theodore Thomas orchestra. 
Another harpist who has appeared several times at camp 
entertainments is little six-year-old Alice Dillon, daughter 



CAMP LEWIS 305 

of the leader of one of the Infantry bands. She plays a 
small harp made expressly for her. 

Maj. M. Y. Croxall was until Spring in immediate 
charge of Military Police. He was then ordered away, 
expecting to go into Cavalry for which he was well fitted, 
having ridden much over his extensive ranches. His place 
was taken by Maj. Read. Lieut. Sidney Foulston, who is 
in command of Military Police kept in Tacoma, also an 
efficient officer, was promoted before the Division went 
out. In fact, as Col. Saville says, they are hand-picked 
men, and he is proud of them and their record. They 
have the courtesy of the educated, which the majority of 
them are. They wear a broad band upon one arm with 
the blue letters M. P. upon it. 

Two Military Police officers, Lieutenants W. P. Gil- 
logly and H. N. Schindler. began a six weeks' course of 
instruction to young women and girls at Tacoma Stadium 
in military training under auspices of the Patriotic League, 
when pleasant weather came. Women are called upon for 
so many unaccustomed activities these strenuous times 
that such instruction is of great value. 

A sergeant of Military Police whose home is in Ta- 
coma where he was born, Crete Chezum, while at camp, 
made a suggestion which will likely be taken up: that a 
tract of a thousand or more acres adjacent to every can- 
tonment be devoted to Universities, shops, gardens and 
ground for the training of trades suitable to maimed sol- 
diers, who, returning from war, find themselves unfitted 
for their former occupations. Concentration of such ser- 
vice would benefit the Army. 

The Ninety-first has been most fortunate throughout in 
its content with its individual unit and officers and men. I 
am tempted to say that is particularly true of the Military 
Police. The hours are very irregular, necessarily, as in no 
other branch of the service, and a man may lose much sleep 
night after night in exigencies, but the men evidently would 
have it no otherwise. All they resent is that "Some people 
think we have a safe job. Don't you believe it. We are 
drilled both as Infantry and Cavalry, but are armed only 

§ 21 



306 THE NINETY-FIRST 

with pistols, and are special targets for attacks at the Front. 
As for our Intelligence department" — he stopped abruptly, 
adding only, "Do you know we have a corps of men who 
speak every language but Timbuctoo? Col. Saville has 
put in a requisition for the first Timbuctoon to enter the 
Depot Brigade, and he always gets what he starts for." 

Speaking of Intelligence, there is now attached to the 
Military Police a man who until Spring was Instructor of 
Jui-jitsu in the Divisional School of Intelligence, Capt. 
Risher Thornberry, the First and Only foreigner to 
obtain a diploma from the Japanese government for the 
practice of its national "Gentle Art of Self Control," which 
gentle art can cause instant death, if need press, with no 
other weapon than hands and body. The Japanese samu- 
rai, nobility, could defile their swords upon no man not 
equal or superior. The Ninety-First was again most 
fortunate in securing a master of the difficult system, a 
man who was chosen to teach Jui-jitsu to the Japanese 
themselves. Curiously, and wisely, they will not issue a 
diploma to a student who has but proved himself proficient, 
he must teach others, for a set period, successfully. It 
is something, then, to be instructed by a man who holds 
that curious scroll. Capt. Thornberry published a series 
of illustrated books upon Jui-jitsu several years ago. 

"The principle of the system is simple, that of the 
lever," he explains. That may seem simple to him and 
clear to you, but to me there are still several points 
unillumined about this "wrestling kit which no soldier 
should be without." 

Capt. Thornberry's life would furnish plots for plays, 
for books of travel, war, adventure, for mystery stories 
that would chain Conan Doyle to his desk — that is, it 
would if he ever spoke. Von Moltke was said to have been 
silent in seven languages; Thornberry has been silent in 
seventy crying adventures. Perhaps it's because he's a 
Quaker, from a family who came to this country in times 
of persecution for the peace and quiet denied them even 
there. 

In the big still frame you can see immense strength, 
but no hint, nor in the almost expressionless face, of 



CAMP LEWIS 



307 




CAPT. THORNBERRY 



agility sudden as lightning. As for anything exciting, you 
would think his whole life presaged by his graduation from 
Hiram Medical College. Ohio. He spent a few months in 
Florida camps and went to Cuba during the Spanish- 
American war. He was surgeon aboard the Hospital Ship 
Relief for two and a half years, went through the Boxer- 
Rebellion and the Russo-Japanese war, entered the Y. M. 
C. A. work in 1902 at Nagasaki, having done naval work 
in the Philippines. Nagasaki is the great coaling station 
of Japan. Here the Floating Society occupied the only 
clean building in the city and boasted the only soda water 
fountain in Japan, and "the fizz was twenty-five cents a 
glass." He was a U. S. marshal under Consul-General 
Fowler for a year. 



308 THE NINETY-FIRST 

What follows, and hint of his dramatic adventures, 
was told by a close friend, who is responsible when the 
Captain reads this. 

It was in 1902 that there began that series of covert 
attacks and marvelous escapes which would read like the 
"continued-in-our-next" episodes of a dime novel should 
they ever get into print. Richard Harding Davis is one 
of those who attempted to learn of them. They began 
with his going ashore from his ship to treat a desperately 
ill mestizo, (Chinese and Filipino) a beautiful young girl. 
With him was another doctor who had called him for con- 
sultation, and a much-loved prominent American citizen 
who had asked the physicians to come to her. Disinfect- 
ing his hands, Dr. Thornberry pushed up his sleeves and 
thereby disclosed a mark tattooed upon his arms — nonsense 
in company of some friends long before. It was the skull 
and serpents, sign of his healing calling. Years there- 
after, he learned that it was also the sign of a terrible 
Oriental society, similiar to the Black Hand. It was seen 
by the sick girl whose brother was of an opposing cult, 
and she was commanded to kill the man of mercy who 
bore it, also the two with him, who might be implicated. 
She therefore poisoned them with one of the fearful secret 
potions known in the East. The other two died in fright- 
ful torments. Dr. Thornberry, with an iron constitution, 
survived, but for years suffered periodical returns of in- 
tense agony, under which he would eventually have suc- 
cumbed, for 'tis said the poison never fails, had it not 
been for Jui-jitsu. He was told by Orientalists that tap- 
ping near the spine, or the constant violent exercise of 
wrestling, might eradicate the subtle poison. He chose 
the latter and began Jui-jitsu. He took hourly lessons in 
the most violent forms known. After a time the poison 
exuded from the skin in tiny drops from knees to ankles, 
and finally he entirely recovered; but for thirteen years, 
he was relentlessly pursued, from one country to another, 
and his life attempted in every form. A charm foiled 
every hoodoo, it would seem, for he was never even hurt. 
Toward the end of that time he received a number of 



CAMP LEWIS 309 

anonymous letters warning him of attempts to be made, 
and finally, three or four years ago only, a letter reached 
him saying that he was never to be molested again, that 
it had been found he had no affiliation with the hated 
bund. This is not the place for all the dramatic story, 
the many incidents of which are almost unbelievable. 

He has lived in Mexico through all its revolutions since 
Madero. Did you ever read "Real Soldiers of Fortune? 
One of them was Maj. Burnham, hero of the Boer war, 
a relative of John Hays Hammond who put him in charge 
of his 600,000-acre concession in Sonora. There Capt. 
Thornberry and his little family lived for three years, 
and he was in entire charge of the protection of the Amer- 
icans of the district and of their movement and rendezvous, 
should fiight become advisable. This was from 1909 to 
1912. During this time he was closely associated with 
Maj. Burnham, one of the wonder scouts and intelligence 
men of the world. Capt. Thornberry is invaluable to our 
service. His war record as surgeon was long, but he 
wished to go into the fighting Army, entered the Presidio, 
and was graduated from the First Training School as 
Captain. He now heads a company of Military Police and 
will go with them to France for another war. And a 
Quaker ! 

Of course Military Police have also the care of their 
horses, and they are well mounted. Headquarters Troop 
Guarding Headquarters in war, and in peace employed 
principally as orderlies, belongs also to the Trains. Capt. 
Coakley is its Commanding Officer. 



Lieutenant-Colonel Allen Smith, Jr., Commanding Of- 
ficer of the 316th Ammunition Trains, comes from a fight- 
ing family, one of whom was an officer with Washington. 
His Grandfather was Maj .-Gen. C. F. Smith who was in 
command of a Division at Fort Donelson and of whom 
Gen. Grant in his Memoirs says, "It is probable that the 
general opinion ivas that Smith's long services in the army, 
and distinguished deeds rendered him the more proper 



310 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



pers\on for- such command. Indeed I ivas rather inclined 
to this opinion myself at that time, and would have served 
as faithfully under Smith as he had done under me." 




MOTOR TRUCK 



Gen. Smith had been distinguished all through the 
Mexican War, at Cerro Gordo, San Antonio, the Storming 
of Chapultepec, commanding a storming party at — but 
this is not a record of today. He was graduated nearly 
a hundred years ago from West Point and he died soon 
after his gallant charge on the Heights of Donelson. Grant 
wrote: "His death ivas a severe loss to our western army. 
His personal courage ivas unquestioned, his judgment and 
professional acquirements ivere imsurpassed, and he had 
the confidence of those he commanded as well as of those 
over him." 



CAMP LEWIS 



311 



0^ 




LT. COL. ALLEN SMITH 

This, too, was told by the Civil War veteran, who 
fought at Donelson. The quotations are from Gen. Grant's 
autobiography, and speak as clearly of the generosity of 
the one, as of the capacity of the other. 

Lt. Col. Smith's father was a midshipman in the Civil 
War, and was retired as Brigadier-General. He himself 



312 THE NINETY-FIRST 

enlisted in the First Washington and was appointed Sec- 
ond-Lieutenant in the Spanish American war. He fought 
in over thirty engagements, says a friend, without, a 
scratch. He was in the China Relief Expedition, and in 
the Philippine Insurrection was Major of Scouts; was in 
the Islands for six years. He served on the Mexican 
Border at Douglas, Yuma and Ogallas, coming as Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel to Camp Lewis August 25, in charge of the 
316th Ammunition Train. This Train, like the others, is 
under general control of Col. Saville, but also belongs to 
the Artillery arm of service. Enlisted men wear the T 
which shows the former, and a red-and-blue hatcord. Its 
great steel motor trucks carry ammunition of all kinds, 
transport the small arms and even one three-inch gun for 
each battalion, machine guns, caisson, shells and the like. 
They bring such ammunition from the depot of supplies 
at the rear, to a distributing base near the front, where 
the combat trains attached to the various units pick it 
up to take where needed upon the firing line. There are 
supposed to be thirty-six motors to each of the four com- 
panies. There are also mule-drawn wagons and caissons. 
Of course animals are occasionally used, but in this war, 
more and more, it is the motor. The men of the Ammuni- 
tion Train are largely specialists, assigned because of their 
knowledge of motors which they must know like the al- 
phabet, and be able to repair. They undergo some drilling 
as artillery battery. Many of the men are from the large 
auto factories. 

Another officer of Spanish-American service is Major 
Norris J. Shupe, in command of the motor battalion of 
the 316th Ammunition, who attended the first Officers 
Training Camp at the Presidio, formerly a lawyer of Chi- 
cago, but whose home is in Pasadena. The Major is a fine 
horseman, but, under breath, his daughter Phyllis is better. 
Officers of these trains ride horses at camp but at the 
front will travel in autos. Major Weir of the Mounted 
Train will be glad of this. The Lord did not Hooverize 
when He made the Major, and a Trains tradition will recall 
the big man on the little mare the day of a long hike. 



CAMP LEWIS 



313 



True to her sex, the mare bore a good deal, and long, in 
both senses, but, finally concluding that the imposition 
would go on, deliberately lay down on her job, as one 
aptly put it. She did not kick, just quit. The Major said 
a number of things, doubtless justified from his point of 
view, but the mare kept an ominous silence; actions speak 
louder than words. She lay there in the road, stubbornly 




MAJ. MORRIS J. SHUPE 



refusing to rise, and listened quietly to the Major, who, 
with eloquence which both surprised and charmed, with 
plenty of local color — mostly lurid red — and dashes of 
humor, though he himself appeared to be unconscious of 
these, he exhausted the subject. 



314 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Just before the Trains went out, Maj. Gen. William 
Kobbe, U. S. A. retired, and Mrs. Kobbe of Pasadena came 
to Camp Lewis for a farewell visit to their son, Capt. 
Eric Kobbe, of the 316th Ammunition. Another son, Maj. 
Herman at Camp Fremont, and a third. Col. F. W. in 
France, are of the regular army. The other two sons. 
Captains William H. and Eric, attended Officers Training 
Camps. The former recently lost a hand in a premature 
grenade explosion, yet he and the others hope he will 
be retained in active service. All this might be expected 
from a family with the father's record. He enlisted as 
a private in New York Militia in 1862 and was a First- 
lieutenant by the next year. He fought throughout the 
Civil War, then entered the regular army as Second-Lieu- 
tenant, fortunate in being demoted but one rank, for in 
the sudden decreasing of the army, when only distinguished 
officers could be retained at all, there were scores of neces- 
sary cutting demotions. There was General Roussean, who 
became a Lieutenant in the 7th Cavalry, but was always 
called General. 

Maj. -Gen. Kobbe fought in the Philippines as Major, 
Lieutenant-Colonel, and Brigadier-General, and was De- 
partment Commander of Mindanao and Jolo. Having 
acquired the habit of being brevetted for bravery during 
the Civil War, he kept it up in the Islands. All this made 
it more of a joke upon Capt. Eric Kobbe, his being thrown 
from his horse in manoevers one day, even if his leg was 
broken. Now in the regular army the forfeit for being 
thrown has immemorially been champagne all round for 
jeering brother officers: it is the only thing that shuts 
their mouths. As Washington is dry — at least as to liquor 
— the occasion was robbed of even this sparkle. It was 
bottled, but as a beverage, Oh ! The Trains officers combine 
in hoping that if Capt. Kobbe is fated to break the other 
leg, he will not fall until their arrival in France, where 
champagne will partly console them for his misfortune. 

As the Trains were needed, they were, with the Artil- 
lery, the last of the 91st Division to leave for France the 
end of June, 1918. The Ammunition Train celebrated by 



CAMP LEWIS 315 

a beautiful party in their Assembly Hall on the very last 
Saturday night. The invitations were general, everybody 
made welcome. Sergeant Whyler had charge of the decora- 
tions, and as he was interior decorator for Douglas Fair- 
banks, they were beautiful and unique. In the center of 
the ceiling hung five large flags of the Allied countries 
which at a signal during the dance, fell, scattering dozens 
of toy balloons of every color attached to corsage bouquets 
of sweet peas and maiden-hair ferns for the ladies. The 
company insignia accompanied each, for a keepsake. A 
supper, carrying out the decorations in pink and green, 
completed an evening in which song and dance had com- 
bined to enliven a farewell to all the pleasures of camp 
life. Now, it was France and fight. 

The 316th Supply Train is commanded by Maj. Oscar 
Seebach who entered the Spanish American war with the 
13th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. He was in the battle 
of Manila and in August 1898 was shot through both 
lungs. He was brevetted Major at that time when he com- 
manded a battalion under Gen. Lawton. He spent ten weeks 
in a hospital recovering from his wounds. For fifteen years 
afterward he served in the National Guard of Minnesota. 
His home is at Red Wing, that state. 

There are 192 auto trucks in the 316th Supply Train, 
and six companies of seventy-five, with two oflficers to a 
company. The motor trucks take the place of the old 
mule-drawn supply wagons. For five months the men are 
drilled as infantry. They understand motor cars better 
than their own bodies. Some of the men needed are not 
yet drafted for this important service and may be asked 
to be inducted with this Train, which brings rations, equip- 
ment, forage for animals of the Trains etc., from the 
base of supplies to the troops, as the Ammunition Train 
does gun food. The Supply Train also holds reserves of 
cattle and horses to be killed or harnessed as required. 
The Supply Trains do not, of course, fight unless attacked, 
but are trained to defend themselves and the Army neces- 
sities they carry. 



316 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Maj. Seebach filled a new role when he gave away the 
bride in the second military wedding at Camp Lewis, Miss 
Agnes Johnston, to Lieut. Wilmer Brinton, childhood 
friends in Butte, Montana. The chaplain of the 316th 
Train, an old friend of both, performed the ceremony in 
Y-8 which was prettily decorated. The groom's company 
furnished music. All the officers of the companies com- 
manded by Maj. Seebach were in the wedding party and 
every man of the Train was on hand to do honor to the 
occasion. The mess hall had also been decorated by the 
men themselves and a banquet was served to the battalion 
and guests. Many a time in the trenches in France you 
of the Supply Train will remember all the good fellowship 
of that wedding, will you not? and the fact that every 
one of Lieut. Brinton's company gathered flowers upon a 
hike the day before towards the mess hall decorations. 

Also under command of Col. Saville of the Military 
Police, by reason of their activities at and near the Front 
in keeping roads open for them, is the Division Engineer 
Train which supplies its corps with everything needed by 
them in building, operating and repairing railway, road, 
bridges, entrenchments, in fact all operations of this great 
branch of the army. There are heavy tools and appliances, 
explosives, animals and vehicles, and the men in charge 
of them all. The systematizing of all co-ordinating branches 
has had great effect upon eflSciency. 

Military Police and Trains insist that they have just 
the chaplain they want in C. A. Rexroad. He is burly and 
jolly and strong, and can ride and swim and wrestle with 
the best of them — and the worst of them, equally. He was 
born in West Virginia but brought up in Christian county, 
and Christian fashion, in Missouri. His father was a 
blacksmith, and the chaplain considers himself a first class 
horseshoer. He worked his way through college, starting 
with two dollars and a half in his pocket and a scant 
ten dollars' worth of clothes, yet he won the oration medal 
in his third year. This was at Scarritt, where he took 
a M. A. degree. At college he played end, right guard and 
right tackle, pitched baseball semesters, and hay stacks, 
summers. After graduation and ordination he went into 



CAMP LEWIS 



317 




CHAPI.AIN e. A. RKXROAD 



the service of body, mind and soul, that is, he conducted 
athletics, taught school, and pastored a church, all at once. 
In one Oregon town, he was superintendent of schools, in 
the bargain. He taught religion and history and Latin 
and athletics. He believes in a stalwart faith in a sturdy 
body, plenty of laughing and living and loving. At Milton, 
Oregon, he was Athletic Director and sub-teacher in Co- 
lumbia College Jr., and pastor of a church. At Corvallis, 
he was also a member of the Advisory Board of the Y. M. 
C. A., at Oregon Agricultural College. At Butte — he is no 
rolling stone but a Methodist, which accounts for his many 
moves — at Butte he actually remained five years. He was 
president of the Sunday School Baseball and Athletic As- 
sociation which won the medal for Silver Bow County. 



318 THE NINETY-FIRST 

The radio wrist watch which he wears was their gift. For 
three years he was also manager of the Lyceum course. 
Two summers he was superintendent and morning lecturer 
of a Chautauqua. He can ride any horse he can shoe, and 
not climb off "to rest his horse" as one of the young 
Lieutenants said he did, to Col. Saville's great amusement. 

When Ritchie gave boxing lessons at the Y's, Lieut. 
Rexroad immediately "signed up, just as well to do a 
thing scientifically." The funniest thing that ever hap- 
pened at Camp Lewis was the boxing bout which ensued 
between him and Chaplain Lutz of the 316th Engineers. 
They put on wrestling togs in approved fashion — what 
would his Methodist forebears have said to this, even in 
a layman, and in a clergyman! At any rate the Y was 
packed to the doors, soldiers perched in the roof girders 
and in the windows. The second round was lengthened 
for pure enjoyment of the scene. Chaplain Rexroad re- 
ceived one black eye — there is no King-road to pugilism, 
but the other "drew a pair, and besides." The winner 
was presented with a very beautiful shower bouquet con- 
sisting of a large flat cabbage, hung with tiny carrots, to- 
matoes and parsnips upon narrow ribbons. Lieut. Rex- 
road chuckles even yet over his victory and that shower 
bouquet. 

But when Chaplain Rexroad speaks, the men go to 
hear. For the First time at Camp Lewis, he had the 
buglers sound Church Call one Sunday morning. The sol- 
diers had never heard it and when three buglers before 
Y-8 trumpeted, the startled Companies rushed over to 
see what was the matter. The regulars or the navy would 
have recognized: 

"Go to church if you care, 
Do the right if you dare. 
Some folks go to sing and pray 
Others to hear the Preacher's say: 
Many, for they ivere raised that way, 
Go, all are welcome there." 

The Military Police and the Trains hear it every Sun- 
day now. 



J 



CAMP LEWIS 319 

THE SANITARY TRAIN 

The term Sanitary Train is misleading to a civilian. 
The word sanitary, pertaining to health, they know of 
course; but is this branch of the Service, something like 
250 medical officers and 1300 enlisted men, a huge camp 
Health Department? It is not. It is First Aid to the 
Injured at the Battlefront and goes with the Division. 
Of it are four Ambulance Companies, trained to remove 
the wounded from the battlefield to the four Field Hospi- 
tals which complete the Sanitary Train, and which are 
set up at the Front, where they are enabled to care for 
at least 200 patients ayi hour during a combat. Surgeons 
and others assigned to this department must be, it goes 
without saying, experts, and especially trained to speed. 
Every Field Hospital is equipped with tents and bedding to 
care for 216 patients. Of course bandages, disinfectants, 
anaesthetics, etc., are brought with the Train. 

In addition to the Sanitary Train, there are about 200 
medical officers with the enlisted medical detachments 
throughout the Division who are being trained for over- 
seas service and who, in the Infirmaries attached to vari- 
ous units, care for minor ailments among the sick at camp. 
All of these officers and men are not only capable of per- 
forming surgical and medical duty, but are trained to a 
working knowledge of the fighting organizations. 

Because "conscientious objectors" to war have been 
allowed to enter Sanitary Trains, do not fancy they are 
among the safe. The fact is that aviators, at first con- 
sidered the most endangered, rank fourth in casualties, 
and ambulance men first. When it is remembered that the 
large majority of ambulance men, aware of this fact, are 
volunteers to that corps, it is plain that any "cissy" of 
your acquaintance is not apt to belong to a Company, 
and if any "objector" does, it is more than probable that 
it really is a matter of conscience, that he would rather 
give his own life than take an enemy's. For these men, 
unarmed, go upon the battlefield with their stretchers, 
carrying the wounded to the Field Hospitals close by, 



320 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




where immediate treatment saves thousands of Hves; in 
fact this almost instant attention has reduced death per- 
centage among the wounded to a heartening extent. Am- 
bulances then take the sufferers further to the rear to 



CAMP LEWIS 321 

Base Hospitals. As the Huns specialize in wounded, hospi- 
tals, Red Cross workers, women and children, their air- 
planes and snipers take heavy toll of these passersby and 
of the brave men who go forth in quiet mercy, not in 
frenzied pursuit, to save, not to kill, knowing full well 
that of ten who start upon their errand, six will not re- 
turn. 

The Sanitary Train, though at Camp Lewis apart from 
all other Trains in location, extending as it suitably does 
along the Base Hospital, has no connection with that im- 
mobile hospital, but is part of the command of Col. Saville 
of Military Police. The reason will be readily seen, as 
this whole Train goes abroad and the Military Police guard 
roads and keep them clear to the battlefront. The Sanitary 
Train is also under the general jurisdiction of the Division 
Surgeon. 

In immediate charge of the eight companies of the 
Sanitary Train, at its Headquarters, is Lt. Col. Harry B. 
Reynolds. He was a prominent physician at Palo Alto, 
California, was graduated from the Officers Training 
School at Fort Riley as Captain in June 1917, was in 
charge of mustering in the National Guard of North Da- 
kota, came to Camp Lewis late in August. He is an en- 
thusiast over his men, and if you half smile, remembering 
how many officers at Camp Lewis have "the best," he re- 
minds you that his are chiefly volunteers to a 'specially 
hazardous service and, moreover, principally college men 
who resigned important positions to enlist as privates. 
Take the Ambulance companies : the 361st, Captain John 
Kuykendall, came as a body from the University of Ore- 
gon ; the 362nd trained at Fort Riley, Kansas, one of the 
three camps for medical men ; the 363rd is entirely com- 
posed of volunteers organized in Portland ; the 364th, of- 
ficers and men, are all Master-Masons from lodges around 
San Francisco Bay and Oakland. It does seem that he 
has good ground for his boast. 

Col. Reynolds is one of those men who always drops 
something interesting into even a casual conversation. 
He explained that all organizations numbered below 100 

§ 22 



322 THE NINETY-FIRST 

belong to the Regular Army, those in the lOO's to the 
general army ; the 200's axe National Guard, and the 300's 
National Army. There are sixteen Divisional cantonments 
in the country, Camp Lewis is number 16, so the trains 
are 316. The companies are four, four times sixteen is 
64, back to the sixty-first, on the same principle of the 
numbering of city blocks. 

Speaking of the 364th Ambulance Company, it is the 
only war organization in the country of which every one, 
of the 124, is a Master-Mason. Around the tables of the 
Masonic Club, San Francisco, the idea was broached when 
this country entered the war. John L. McNab, H. G. 
Squier and Clayton Elliott took up the plan. Before the 
First of July, the required five officers and 119 men had 
signed for the duration of the war. From then the com- 
pany was continually entertained, and at the end of July 
a farewell reception was given them at the San Francisco 
Civic Auditorium where their colors were presented to 
the Company. A few days later they donned their uni- 
forms. August 4, under its Commanding Officer, Captain 
Cadwallader, the Corps met as a body for the first 
time, in front of the Masonic Temple on Van Ness avenue ; 
was formed in a column of fours, and marched to the City 
Hall, where it was addressed by Mayor Rolph of San 
Francisco and presented by him with a guidon; thence 
down Market street, preceded by several Masonic bands 
and followed by hosts of relatives and friends, to the 
Ferry Building. 

They were the first of the Ambulance Companies to 
arrive and they camped in tents for two weeks at Camp 
Lewis. These Masonic Brothers are like brothers with a 
small b. Every one of them wears a heavy, broad, square- 
edged gold ring, with Ambulance in blue enamel at the 
top, and name and date engraved behind it. The masonic 
grip within that company, 364th Ambulance U. S. N. A., 
will be hard to break. Said one of them, "There will 
have to be more than one page in that book about — 'here 
their names I write, these were my pals,' for everyone of 
us will have to inscribe all the 123 others. We're all pals 



CAMP LEWIS 323 

in this Company — better still — Yes! have each sign his 
name." Capt. Bert L. Doane is now their commander. 

There are four field Hospitals, commanded by Major 
Stanley Berry, one for each Brigade. Upon the Battle- 
front, it is established close to its organization, that the 
wounded need be carried no farther than necessary. The 
361st Field boasts of eighty-five percent volunteers. The 
362nd attends to casualties at Camp Lewis. According to 
First-sergeant R. D. Wallis, who brought one hundred 
seventy-five of them from Fort Riley, twenty were as- 
signed from the regulars and thirty-five from the Reserve 
Corps at Portland, so that, as he says, their company "is 
the best, with the pickings of all three branches of the 
Service." It is the only animal-drawn Field Hospital at 
camp. Sergeant Wallis, who gave the picture, hopes it 
will show all the faces of "the best bunch in camp" but 
I hae my doots — about showing the faces, not about the 
best. They are all so good that it's a case of liking best 
the kind of fruit you eat last. They have some good ani- 
mals in the company and Capt. G. H. Richardson was to 
have ridden in the Remount Rodeo but was ill. 

The 363rd, under Major Sellwood, was recruited in 
Portland; so was the 364th, which boasts of being First 
of Sanitary Trains to reach Camp Lewis, July 14, 1917, 
enlisted under Major Strohm, now assistant to the Divis- 
ion Surgeon. Maj. Archie Dowdall is Division Ambulance 
Commander. Several of the 364th have obtained com- 
missions. 

They are a fairly busy branch, these Field Hospital 
men, who are not named, it may be needless to 
remark after the Division Surgeon, but because they are 
mobile, take the field, while the Base Hospital remains. 
They train with Infantry, though in the Field they wear 
pistols only. They are instructed in the care of sick and 
wounded, administer anaesthetics, attend lectures upon 
physiology, bacteriology, and every branch of medicine. 
They serve as assistant surgeons, nurses, and chauffeurs 
of the twelve motor trucks, so that the entire Sanitary 



324 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Train serves between the lines of action and the zone of 
advance. As one of its members boasted, "Our Train 
clears roads of communication before ever the Military 
Police take them over. In Field service we even wear the 
Red Cross that the Hun may know we're the birds he 
wants to snipe, like a fencer wearing a red badge over 
the heart. Talk about Medics! Do you know we won the 
silver football? Never lost a game in the Division. Medics! 
How about the Division Champion undefeated, heavy- 
weight pugilist, or the World's Champion hurdler, both 
our men? How about George Cunna, the swimmer, of 
the 362nd Ambulance? Have you heard Sergt. Perry of 
the 364th Ambulance sing?" He would have been boasting 
yet, had not Recall sounded. Then had you passed the 
corral and sheds on the way, wagons, horses, trucks, am- 
bulances, motorcycles, all parts of the organization, you 
would be inclined to believe with him that the 316th Sani- 
tary Train "is a whole thing, Pm telling you." 

Five of its eight companies are from "Portland, the 
home of medical patriots," as Lieut. Lacombe, chaplain 
of the 347th Artillery, expressed it. It isn't safe to 
be "indisposed" in Portland nowadays, there cannot be a 
physician left in its borders. Why, there is Base Hospital 
46, University of Oregon and Elks, one of the first units 
to be recruited, last July, and only mobilized the end of 
March, awaiting orders to prepare for France all that 
time. A committee of four from Portland Lodge B. P. O. 
E. No. 142 came to present the colors. Monroe Goldstein, 
attorney from Portland, made the presentation speech, 
referring to the million dollar fund of the Grand Lodge 
raised for war purposes. The equipment of the hospital 
cost $60,000. C. M. Ringler, exalted ruler of the Portland 
Lodge formally gave over the standard, which was ac- 
cepted by Lt. Col. Davis of Hospital 46. George L. Baker, 
Mayor of Portland, and several of the council also visited 
the unit which underwent intensive training at Camp 
Lewis. Addressing, them, he said: 

"Remember, boys, Oregon is as proud of you as ylou 
are of Or^egon. Remember wherever you go, the people of 



CAMP LEWIS 325 

you?- home state are with you 100 per cent. Some of us 
are too old to go ivith you, but you can rest assured 
that we will back you up iyi the good work you are doing. 
The ivhole country is ivith you a7id I want you to feet 
especially proud, of your home toivn." 

This unit is not only a Portland; but quite a family 
one. There are said to be as many relatives in it as in 
a Maine village, including four brothers, Nelson's — and the 
organization is not from Salt Lake, Utah, remember, but 
Portland, Oregon. 

********** 

Counted with the Sanitary Trains, now, is the new 
Dental Infirmary on the other side of the parade ground 
where, in a large, two story building, are installed the 
finest of dental chairs and full electric equipment, sanitary 
in white enamel, with gleaming instruments enough to 
strike terror to the heart. The best enlisted dentists or, 
as they call them at camp, dental surgeons, to the number 
of thirty-six, treat the teeth of 120 enlisted men daily. 
Every man in the Division must have his teeth examined 
every month and the slightest cavity is filled at once, free. 
This is one great Compensation : a Nation addicted to in- 
ordinate quantities of sweets and salt, eating little tough, 
jaw-exercising food, and many people, especially in country 
districts, neglecting tooth care and repair, we were fast 
approaching a toothless future. More men have been 
refused admittance to the army because of their teeth 
than for any other reason. This emphasizes their im- 
portance. 

There is a well-equipped laboratory in which eight, even 
ten sets of plates a day are made by two experts, while 
so large a stock of teeth is carried, that any man's may 
be matched in size and color. These, too, are free, and 
plates are carefully fitted. Everything except gold is free. 
If only I had some of the money in my pocket that T have 
in my mouth, I could own a six-cylinder, and even afford 
to run it. 

An officer is in charge at the infirmary every hour of 
the twenty-four, ready to leap at a jumping toothache and 
kill a nerve as he would a Hun. It is the most up-to-date 



326 THE NINETY-FIRST 

dental establishment on the coast, even the instruments 
are electrically sterilized, and the box opens at the touch 
of a foot upon a spring in the floor. It was thought this 
dentists' office of twenty-three chairs would serve the 
whole Division, for dental surgery cases are treated at the 
Base Hospital ; but another even larger will probably be 
built at the other side of the cantonment. This infirmary 
is on the South side next the 44th Infantry. It was not 
opened until May and the long room is filled with wait- 
ing patients from morning till night. Just think in how 
much better physical condition those troops will leave 
camp, compared with themselves, when they came! The 
Ninety-First will add this work to its other reasons for 
smiling countenances. Dentists will accompany the army 
overseas, taking full field dental equipment. The insignia 
of army dentists is the same as the medics' except that 
the serpents of the Caduceus have D upon them. Many 
a man, and may yours be among them, will return from 
the war unscathed, in better health and repair, better edu- 
cated, traveled, self-controlled, than ever before in his life. 
********* * 

Attached to the Field Hospital section of the 316th 
Sanitary Trains, but with his office at Division Head- 
quarters to be near the Judge-Advocate, with whom his 
work co-ordinates, and the Division Surgeon, under whose 
department he serves — First in the United States to be 
appointed to a strange and telling work in our army, or 
any other, is Major Robert P. Smith, Neuro-Psychiatrist — 
Whew! Yet so deeply am I interested in newly acquired 
information pertaining to the mysterious department, that 
I can pronounce it quite casually si, ki, with the accent on 
the ki, a-trist. The word means mind-healer, though the 
department means that, backwards. The science of it is 
not new, though the practical applications to army life 
and courtroom are; and though Major, formerly Doctor 
Smith, for many years specialized in diseases of nerves 
in his Southern home and for several years in Seattle, 
has developed its researches to practical value, he insists 
that Judge-Advocate Strong deserves all credit for intro- 



CAMP LEWIS 327 

ducing it into the service. And that is a genuine achieve- 
ment for, as Major Smith puts it, Phychiatry is an inter- 
mediate between law and medicine. To me it seems a 
wonderful hyphen between Judge Advocate, providing new 
voices to plead before judgment. Phychiatry is a mental 
X-Ray medicine, Orthopedy of morals. For instance, there 
is the young officer who goes into fits of rage over trifles, 
or nothing, the private who tells the wildest stories of 
his marvelous exploits, the athlete who believes he has 
lost the use of his arm, all who have a kink in their brains, 
instead of in their spines : mental and moral misfits. These 
in many phases have come before the Psychiatric depart- 
ment to about the number of 2,500, a very small percentage 
of the 50,000 men who have entered Camp Lewis, and 
only about 700 of them have been rejected. Some have 
been returned to civil life where they are capable of earn- 
ing a livelihood, perhaps, without ever doing any harm, 
but who would endanger those about them in a crisis. 
Some have been found insane and returned to their States 
to be confined. Many have been cured by the specialists 
with which Major Smith is associated. 

Of the former was the curious case of a private in one 
of the Trains. He came in the early days of the camp and, 
though often quoted for his queer sayings, held his own 
until his empty bed was discovered one night in barracks. 
He appeared for assembly in the morning and it was found 
he had slept in another barracks. Questioned, he replied 
casually that he just thought he'd see if his pals would 
miss him enough to look him up. Asked how long he had 
been in the army, he replied, "twenty years," and that 
he was Top Sergeant. Asked where he had been stationd 
before coming to Camp Lewis, he answered promptly, 
"at Fort Steilacoom." He was taken to the Phychiatrist 
and, after examination, returned to the asylum from which 
he had escaped in the Fall. He had changed his name, 
entered the army, and been but a few miles, for months, 
from those who searched for him. 

Had it accomplished no more than at Camp Lewis, the 
Psychiatric Department would have vindicated its estab- 



328 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




THE M ASi 



lishment in ridding the Division of the unfit, but overseas 
it has already proved invaluable. Captain Calhoon, former- 
ly in charge of the State insane asylum at Steilacoom, has 
charge of the clinic for mental and nervous diseases. 

There is less malingering in this part of the hospital 
than in any other, as you will agree when you remember 
that a soldier who succeeds in fooling his examiners 
stands a good chance of confinement in an insane asylum. 
Major Smith chuckles over one exception, a man who had 
formerly enlisted in the regular army for the customary 
three years. He decided that if he was considered feeble 
minded he would fare better and he apparently lay awake 
nights to think up new schemes. Being a particularly 
acute man, much brighter than his commander likely, adds 



CAMP LEWIS 



329 




LANCE UNIT 



Major Smith, that three years was a delightful joke. Well, 
he was caught in the first draft and began the feeble- 
minded play at Camp Lewis. ''Confronted with the results 
of our clinic, he heartily concurred in the findings, acknow- 
ledged that life at Camp Lewis was not so dull as it had 
been in the little old army post, and that he was ready 
to serve. He went back to barracks and put his undoubted 
brains into soldiering, and he's going to be heard from, 
mark my words." 

One of the isolation wards is devoted to phychiatric 
patients and is under Capt. Albert Stewart's charge, Mith 
Miss Bessie McCann, a very capable nurse who has special- 
ized in mental and nervous diseases. Dr. Stewart is of 
the quiet, patient, kindly yet forceful and resourceful type, 



330 THE NINETY-FIRST 

that succeeds best in such a field. He has been connected 
for years with the State asylums at Steilacoom and Sedro- 
Woolley. 

Naturally, most of the work done in this depart- 
ment it is not wise to divulge, but some cases may be 
referred to. A huge man six foot six, so perfectlj^ pro- 
portioned that he did not look large till he rose and 
towered above me, was writing while awaiting discharge 
papers, a man with a kindly, boyish, almost childlike face, 
one who, returning to ordinary life in the lonely open 
for which he longed, would never be suspected of the 
"unstable mind" which had been shown in his strange 
form of hysteria. While drilling, he had suddenly im- 
agined that his right arm had become immovable. He 
complained of pain in it and held the arm crooked. 
Doctors found nothing whatever the matter with his arm 
and saw that his was a case for the Psychiatrist: healer 
of the mind. Nothing could persuade him that he could 
move his arm. Suggestion was tried but not hypnotism. 

Dr. Stewart had an idea ; he told the man that if 
the arm could be limbered, it would doubtless entirely 
recover, but if it was so painful they would better anaes- 
thetize him, so they gave him a whiff or two and then 
worked the arm up and down several times. He realized 
that it was cured, but told me that it was still weak and 
painful. Such form of hysteria is apt to return at any 
crisis and he might in battle find his gun arm immovable, 
such is the power of mind over matter. It would be 
useless for the Government to feed, clothe, transport, and 
pay a man who cannot be all there when needed. It is 
well to find this out early. 

Stretched in bed was another man who imagines he 
cannot stand upon his feet, and who quivers all over if 
one but lays a finger upon him. He says he ''once lay 
four months when they served him so before." Nothing 
but his bed afire would induce him to try to stand. There 
is nothing the matter with them. As Major Smith says, 
"his feet are in his head;" but what I don't understand 
is why if he feels pain in his feet, there is no pain there. 
Oh well, I'm no phychiatrist, and the dividing line between 



CAMP LEWIS 331 

sanity and insanity is so narrow and so wobbly that many 
of us must be standing very near it, or often, stepping 
over it, without anyone's suspecting, least of all, ourselves. 

In a small room, locked in and under sentry, was a 
man just brought from a regimental guard house for a 
misdemeanor which indicated mental unbalance. A strong 
room connected with this ward is for the insane until they 
are removed, or for those temporarily unmanageable. In 
all nervous trouble the soothing power of water is well 
known. In this room is a bath tub water bed, in which 
a man may lie comfortably supported and submerged for 
hours, even overnight. It has a new contrivance in a 
thermostat which may be set at any degree in the mingling 
of hot and cold water, and remain. This cannot be altered 
by the patient and its advantages are apparent when one 
considers the dire consequences if some insane sufferer 
had succeeded in turning on boiling water, or had lain 
long in water grown cold. 

There were three occupants of this strong room, in- 
terned by their ignoble enemy, the only one capable of 
teaching a Hun f rightfulness, Morphbie, World Alien. 
Following a recent outbreak they were exhausted. Two 
were of small calibre, but the world has suffered loss in 
the other's downfall. His great somber eyes had once 
bespoken the promise, "Your young men shall see visions," 
and the prophecy of massive head was of realizing those 
visions. Both promises had been ruthlessly broken. Re- 
finement had been torn from the handsome face like a 
scrap of paper; clouded were the eyes. The long arm 
which had enlisted to be strong for the weak, shamed 
its khaki and hung limply at the side of the weakest, 
"gassed", body, soul and spirit by morphine. Such dere- 
licts only endanger the passage of real men, so, as soon 
as sighted, they are removed to this Soul's Sick Bay, and 
the phychiatric department pronounces him "unfit for 
service." Drug fiend he may be, but is he too far re- 
moved from the manhood which was his, to feel that the 
dishonorable discharge, laid within his pallid hand, sends 
him forth, for life, for death, A Man Without a Country. 



332 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Both slacker and coward should I be, did I not here 
enlist, as the humblest of privates, in an offensive move- 
ment which is no longer, thank God, a forlorn hope. Read 
sadly of our widespread shame, gladly that its dominion 
is to cease, and proudly of our Government, First among 
Nations ever to attempt the eradication of a disease more 
devasting than typhus, cholera, smallpox, yellow-fever. 
Black Plague or White; old as sin, modern as Today — 
Syphilis, ranking general in the Army of Death. Now 
that many and varied "respectable diseases" are traced 
directly to it. Syphilis stands the convicted murderer of 
thrice the number of tuberculosis victims, damning both 
soul and body unto the third and fourth generation. Amer- 
ican men have shuddered at the sacrifice of Belgian women 
to Hun Leprosy, of cutting off their breasts as warning 
to other syphilitic Germans. Do they not know that they 
themselves have brought upon their own wives the loss 
of breast by scalpel instead of sword, and have murdered 
their own unborn children, or disfigured the living more 
hopelessly than have Huns the children of enemies? 

As a people we had begun to realize that to ignore a 
condition is not to change it, so when war was declared 
there was a strong and general demand that our army, 
should not be dis-armed. The very next month, then. 
May 18, 1917, two extraordinary laws were passed by 
Congress, sentencing Alcohol and Prostitution. These laws 
mark an epoch in civilization. For the First time in World 
History the twin destroyers are not, legally, attached to 
the army where, indeed, they had often held position as 
Aid-de-camps. This is a prime Compensation wherewith 
not only to comfort our hearts, but to make answer, if 
there were no others, to the question, Will this war pay? 
Yes, thank God, Yes. 

But will that law accomplish it? No, of course not, 
unaided, but if men themselves fight like the soldiers they 
are, if we at home open our eyes and stand by them, then 
this powerful law will win, backed by the Military Police 
and the Medical Department of our National Army. It 
is this: Every soldier who enters the danger zone, im- 



CAMP LEWIS 333 

perilling himself, without orders, to a craft more frightful 
than a submarine, is compelled to report, within six hours, 
that he has spoken the enemy, and to submit to the Was- 
sermann test at the camp hospital. Should he neglect this, 
and afterward show signs of syphillis, he is court- 
martialed. 

But our army is bound for France. Read from a 
scientific medical journal: 

Conditions are said by returnhig observers to be un- 
speakable. Unless our boys go there fortified by know- 
ledge and the resolve not to fall to temptations so 
extraordinary we can expect but one thing — a returning 
army of syphilitics. Where our soldiers may be quartered 
ivith civilians it is said that 85 per cent, of the villagers, 
mostly tvomen, are syphilitic. The America^i Government 
should be besought not to billet our soldiers in such sur- 
roundings, but to put our men into camps and zones under 
American military conttiol and under American ideals of 
environment. 

Europe after this war must repeat the histor-y of the 
sixteenth century, in a great epidemic of syphilis. Will 
it happen here also? For every syphilitic retmming there 
will be one, two, five, ten or twenty other cases developing, 
and the effects upon the nation will be that of bicalculable 
harm. To this the loss in killed and u^ounded ivill be 
insignificant in comparison. And as far as syphilis is 
concerned the damage may go on for several generations." 

0, men, we have sacrificed much for you. We Mothers 
served nine months in the wearisome inaction and anxiety 
which you dread most, and then, in first-line trenches, 
fought death hour after hour, in an agony you cannot 
guess, shedding our blood for you in the bravest of battling 
where no enheartening bugle sounds onslaught nor Taps, 
in which comrade can help, whose cross-of-war You were. 
All this we Mothers and Wives bear for your sakes — O 
Men of the 91st, for Our sake, Remember. 

And we, we Sisters. We have shared the dear home, 
have played and studied and worked with you, have always 
been proud of you, but never so proud as now, Big Brothers. 
As you have been sure of our purity, we have believed in 
yours — Brothers of the 91st, for Home's sake Remember. 



334 THE NINETY-FIRST 

And we, flushing with the joy of it, we are your 
Sweethearts, willing, forsaking all others, to cling only 
unto you while life lasts. Is that such a little thing? — 
Men of the 91st, for Love's sake, — 

REMEMBER. 



CAMP LEWIS 335 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

SIGNAL SERVICE CORPS MAJ. WYMAN DIVISION OFFICER, 

MAJ. DANVERS AND THE 316TH BATTALION — MAJ. 
SULLIVAN AND THE 322ND — A YANKEE WIRELESS — SUI- 
CIDE company's BIRTHDAY PARTY — THE DIVISION SIGNAL 
SCHOOL — CARRIER PIGEONS — THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE 
AT CAMP LEWIS — HOMERS IN AIRPLANE FLIGHT. 

Electricity is the American of science. Owing to its 
rapid development, telegraph, telephone, wireless, all 
within the lifetime of some, for Morse wired his first mes- 
sage in 1832, Graham Bell's telephone was the marvel of 
the Centennial Exposition, wireless is almost of Today—- 
the Army Signal Corps has become eyes, ears, tongue of 
Mars. Their aviators spy out the enemy, note his position, 
direct Artillery attack and barrage. Ears, is the Corps, 
in listening posts, at tapped wires, picking up messages 
which roam the sea where wires are not. Tongue, is the 
Signal Corps, speaking in various languages, dictating 
shorthand notes in dot and dash, spot and flash, light and 
shade, in letters of flame, and transcribing them upon 
photographs and maps, into messages and orders — Per 
Lieut. Signal Corps, Stenographer to Mars. 

Division Signal Officer is Maj. Charles Wyman who, 
since leaving West Point in 1907, has had special training 
along these lines. During the second intervention in Cuba, 
Lieut. Wyman, with the 17th Infantry at Camaguey, alter- 
nated mapping with chasing bushwhackers, who were burn- 
ing sugar cane. From Fort McPherson, Georgia, he was de- 
tailed to the Tennesee Moonshine country, then to Texas, 
where, at San Antonio, he was Aid to Gen. Ralph Hoyt. 
He was detailed to Ft. Snelling, Galveston, and the Hawai- 



336 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



ian Islands. At Vancouver Barracks he was made Captain 
of Signal Corps in 1917, was Captain of the 44th Infantry 
now stationed at Camp Lewis, and August 1, made Major, 
and ordered as Division Signal Officer to the cantonment. 
As such he is charged with the efficiency of the several 
methods of communication within the Division. This 
includes Radio, Telegraph, Telephone, Cable, Pigeons, and 
Visual Communications; also, the receipt and transmis- 
sion of messages. 




MAJ. VVVMAN (LEFT) AND MA.JUK DANVERS 



At the Front, he takes over all electrical lines within 
the Division's area, direct all activities of the Signal Corps, 
schemes out new methods of communication, and assists 
the Chief of Staff by arranging for the reception and trans- 
mission of such information to, within, and from the 
Division. Rather a telling sign for a young man — 



U. S. N. A. Oculist, Aurist, Linguist. 



CAMP LEWIS 



337 



Maj. Wilford Danvers, commanding the 316th Field 
Signal Battalion, — that is he wearing the service hat, Maj. 
Wyman with cap, before the tent — enlisted for the Span- 
ish-American War, and saw service in the Philippines. 
He afterward enlisted in the regular army, was stationed 
in Hawaii, and three years at Benicia Barracks, in Signal 
Service. May, 1917, he was made Captain and Instructor 
of signaling at the Presidio, Monterey. In November he 
was Captain, 322nd at Camp Lewis, and in January became 
Major of the 316th Battalion Signal Corps. He was born 




FIELD "WATER SUPPLY 



in Utah of Mormon parents. His Grandfather, L. W. Shurt- 
leff, was a Forty-niner, traveling all the way from Omaha to 
the Land of Promise, by "handcar." The first of his family 
to come to this Country, from England, arrived in 1780. 

Maj. Danvers is enthusiastic about his men because of 
their enthusiasm in their work. His radio company spent 
$180 of their own money, assisted by friends, in purchas- 
ing material for experimenting. The morning of the 

§ 23 



338 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



Division March to Roy, this Company was up with the 
lark, that is if the lark is so silly, having the whole day 
before him, of rising at four o'clock, and had their wires 
strung, their aerial erected, connection effected with Camp 
Lewis before the troops arrived. They had telegraph and 
'phone wires, the nervous system of the Army Corps, 
running from Head to Foot and along the Brigade Arms. 
Company A is the radio unit for the 316th and had charge 
of wireless which communicated with Camp Lewis. It 
was a warm Spring Day and the men repaired often to 
"the spring". 




FIELD TELEGRAPH 

A field Signal Battalion, by the way, consists, as in all 
units, of a Headquarters and a supply section, and of one 
wire, one radio, and one outpost company, beside the usual 



CAMP LEWIS 



339 



medical detachment. The hat cord is appropriately, white 
and orange — light and flame — the insignia is a burning 
torch between two signal flags. The men are armed only 
with pistols, for they are supposed to do no fighting, though 
always in the danger zone. All the officers of this Battalion 
are Reserve Corps men. 

The quick witted French are experts in signaling. 
Lieut. 0. Lamarche is the liaison officer. Liaison means 
connection, by any, by every means. Like all the French 
Officers, Lieut. Lamarche wears the ribbon which signifies 




a medal in the service. He was of the 8th Engineers. Of 
the same French unit was his assistant, Serg. Bertrand. 

The Wire company become experts at the work under 
adverse circumstances. That this operator is accustomed 
to other settings is guessed. At the Front, the cutting of 
wires is the continual effort of the enemy. Repairs must 
be instant and vigilance unremitting. The wire is the 
spinal cord, it is pretty much what one of the corps said, 
"the whole show", as the din of a modern battle sector 
makes that of a boiler factory only a foreboding silence. 



340 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Maj. Frank Sullivan, commander of the 322nd Field 
Signal Corps, which might almost be officially designated 
as the Volunteer Californian, is the only officer in the 
91st Division who knows every man in his command "even 
to his front name". According to the same authority he 
is "the best ever and not above joining the bunch". Maj. 
Sullivan has had years of experience in signal service and 
most of the men in his Battalion are specialists, many 
college graduates, technicians from big business, and en- 
listed for special service because of it. Most of them 
were picked before being mustered in. There is Lester 
Burnham of Spokane, who fought in the Spanish-American 
and was determined to be back in uniform if he is fifty- 
four. There's Elias Rowe, expert electrician, Tacoma, 
draft age but afraid he would be obliged to wait, and 
allowed to volunteer because of his proficiency. There's 
Serg. Eyman who was a balloonist in San Francisco, should 
think he would have gone into aviation, heard he after- 
ward did. 

Capt. Edmund Hull of the Radio company must be 
proud of two of his men who, typical Yankees, contrived 
and built a receiving station which, indisputably, is unique 
among wireless. The condenser is of tin foil from chocol- 
ate bars, tape etc., the variable condenser is two baking 
powder cans; flashlight batteries and a battery from a 
wrecked automobile, supply the current. They did buy 
the receiver and audion for increasing the sound, but 
they built the aerial, ninety feet high, of odds and ends 
of wood. One of the geniuses is Serg. Cornish who helped 
construct Monterey wireless station, and the other is Corp. 
Goodspeed Corpe. If he would drop that final e his name 
would say just what he himself bids his company. Mes- 
sages despatched by the powerful government radio at 
Monterey and other Californian wireless stations are 
picked up by this "junk", distinctly heard, and read by 
the Radio Company. 

Running telegraph wires does not necessarily imply 
extra speed in relay races, but when Company B beat 
Company A they felt they could win over any, cross- 



CAMP LEWIS 341 

country running especially. "The 322nd Signal has track 
men to burn:" R. B. Golding who won the Panama Ex- 
position Marathon and holds Loving Cups galore ; W. J. 
Postal who has won enough Marathons to suggest an 
improvement in the Postal Service had he entered it in- 
stead of the Signal ; A. B. Norton, both runner and swim- 
mer, Honolulu ; Sergt. Hanley, sprinter, and a former 
athletic instructor in San Francisco, and E. K. Bartlett 
of the University of California. 

As for Company C, that's an adopted son, in toto. 
Mrs. William Beckman of Sacramento became interested 
because her own, Sergt. St. Kilda belonged to it, and sent 
her boys their entire athletic outfit for foot and baseball 
or anything else they might mention was desired when 
they wrote, as she urged them to do. At Christmas she 
sent them a phonograph with records, one especially for 
Maj. Sullivan and his Adjutant, Lieut. Kenneth McKim, 
with an Irish song on one side and a Scotch on the other, 
boxes of "eats" and a silken guidon, guide-pennant to fly 
before them. Company C, is really pampered. The others 
say a holiday was good enough for them on Washington's 
Birthday, but Company C must have their Fairy God- 
mother, and it must be her birthday, and she must give 
a birthday party to herself with the whole 280 men and 
officers invited, one of the largest Signal Companies in 
the Army and one of the largest dinner parties; and. 
They say, Company C ate like a Suicide Club, as the 
Outpost Signal Corps is nicknamed. Then Sergt. St. Kilda 
made a few remarks on behalf of the rest and presented 
Mrs. Beckman with a gold fountain pen inscribed "To 
Godmother from her Godsons of Co. C 322nd Battalion 
F. S. C. Feb. 22, 1918," and she promised never to write 
a word to anybody else with that pen, and the whole 
affair was perfect except Capt. John S. Baker of the Out- 
post was in the Base Hospital. On February 22, 1919, 
Company C will be dreaming back to that dinner and 
Camp Lewis and Mrs. Beckman, and nothing in all the 
books she has written will equal the adventures they are 
living. 



342 THE NINETY-FIRST 

There was another Signal Battalion, unique in some 
respects, which trained intensively at Camp Lewis for 
several months but was never a part of the 91st Division, 
and went overseas the end of March. It consisted of 
over two hundred men mobilized from expert telegraphers 
from all States in the United, and was commanded by Maj. 
John Keck. That, too, was of Volunteers. 

Signs, signaling, is as old as the hills upon which its 
fires were builded. Indians had a smoke code and sign 
pictures; East Indians rivalled telegraphic messages with 
their signals. Why even children with a cane used to 
play "Malaga raisins are very fine raisins, but raisins from 
Smyrna are better". It amuses this insignificant little 
chronicler to know that her literary style, or lack of it, 
will be criticized by modern Americans just as Polybius', 
the great historian's, was criticized by the ancient Greeks, 
though with this second line, the parallel between us 
abruptly terminates: that he was the First to chronicle, 
200 B. C, the use of Military Signaling, I the last, or 
rather latest, 1918 A. D. No, there is another likeness, 
Polybius understood nothing of wireless; neither do I. 

The Morse code used in our army was devised soon after 
the telegraphic, which it is. Wigwagging came in during 
the Civil War. A man came aboard the Flagship Black 
Hawk to teach it to the Signalers, and it was readily 
picked up by two boy ensigns. One of them, going ashore, 
found that a Brigadier-General was about to visit Admiral 
Lee. With his handkerchief he wigwagged the news to 
his chum, who told the Captain. The Captain reported it 
to the Admiral who ordered the ship "dressed" and him- 
self appeared on deck in full uniform only to find that the 
General had not yet left shore. "Who told you the Gen- 
eral was at hand?" enquired the Admiral. 

"Mr. Barr, sir," answered the Captain. 

"And Mr. Barr, who told you," pursued the Commander. 

"Mr. Calvert wigwagged it to me, sir". 

"Are you a signal officer? How did you know the 
code?" 



CAMP LEWIS 343 

"Just picked it up, sir; it's very easy". 

"Huh," grunted the Admiral, "valuable code!" 

Every genuine boy has flashed his secret fishing plans 
and pirate's rendezous with a piece of broken glass or 
scrap of tin, to the exasperation of elders whose faces 
intercepted the messages. All this explains one of the 
duties of Signal Commanders, devising new codes. Ger- 
mans have boasted, and proved, upon several occasions, 
that they can study out any signal code message within 
two hours, and reply in kind. 

How can a land soldier — is it not strange that there 
are Marines and Sub-marines, Land and Over-land men 
fighting today — a land signaler attract an aviator's at- 
tention? He lays upon the earth a strip of white canvas 
12x3 feet, which is to say, "I'd like to speak to you a 
minute." Upon this a black square 3x3 feet might an- 
nounce the regiment. Company etc., and the conversation 
between man and super-man begins. Sometimes this is 
read from a great page of white waxed canvas, 12x12 
feet, roped around to make it lie flat upon the ground; 
answered, perhaps by electric horn blasts, twice repeated 
from the skies. Signals are operated by lights — torches, 
hand lanterns, searchlights, semaphores, stationary alter- 
nating lights, colored fires, and Ardois incandescents, red 
for a dot, white for a dash; by sound — bombs, rockets, 
honk etc., by flags, — one, or two, in the hands, or by many 
run upon a halyard, all these, beside all forms of electric 
communication, and our lately added pigeon service. 

Of most of these the camp visitor will see nothing and 
hear less, for it is, naturally, secret, but parties of men are 
to be seen everywhere waving signal flags, one rapidly 
working them while men seated somewhere in the shade 
are taking down what he says. This is work advanced 
from that of a class held one rainy day in a Y. Pvt. 
Kingsbury, tenor soloist of Pilgrim Congregational, Seattle, 
graduate of an Eastern Conservatory, voice, piano and 
organ, he who sings Joan of Arc like a personal appeal, 
was conducting a signal class from an Infantry Regiment. 
You must know that a signal platoon is part of the Head- 
quarters Company of every organization. 



344 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



"How old you are?" inquired one foreigner, signaling. 

To an inquiry, "Can you tell what the date is?" 
another answered, "Yes, if I could spell February". An 
enthusiast sprang upon the platform and flagged this 
question, ambitious for a baby-signaler, "Are you going 
to Seattle on Saturday?" This was read by one of the 
class, and an eager-faced fellow, hand up in the very 




SIGNALING 



way it would have been when the boy was short half 
his six-foot length, jumped to the platform, and while the 
class awaited an equally ambitious reply, triumphantly 
flagged "N-o." How they jeered. Military classes, espec- 
ially at the first, were certainly informal, but that they 
accomplished, all agree. 

The work done by the regimental signal platoons is 
principally "buzzer" and "wigwagging." In some head- 
quarters companies the former's wires connect the offices, 
and men become quickly proficient. They are then de- 
tailed for six weeks' instruction to the Division Signal 



CAMP LEWIS 345 

School, which began February 1. This is under Maj. 
Wyman's general supervision, but the immediate command 
of Lieut. H. W. Glensor, who is both popular and success- 
ful in calling out the enthusiastic work of the 1500 stud- 
ents. By the way, soldiers attending service schools wear 
green hatcords, except those of the Officers Training Camp 
who wear red-white-and-blue. 

It is a course which appeals to the American turn of 
mind: telephone and elementary telegraph under Master- 
Signal-Electrician Frank McCurtain, once expert at Mare 
Island Laboratory; map making and reading, and radio 
telegraphy, M. S. E. (as above) Ray Quick — surely he was 
fore-named, graduate of University of California and post- 
graduate of University of Illinois; all methods of visual 
signaling, M. S. E. Henry Greybill, of the regular army, 
and highest "non-com" of the 316th F. S. B. Capt. A. M. 
Taylor of the 316th Outpost Company also works with 
them. 

A man soon takes fifteen words a minute by sema- 
phore and eight by wigwag or radio. Electricians are 
"worms," Outpost Company the "Suicide Club," for the 
listening posts are the Signalers' ears. Night work at 
Camp Lewis has shown the signal platoons speedy and 
noiseless in the dark. 

Not till Spring were carrier pigeons added to the Field 
Signal Corps. Odd that should be the very latest, when 
Noah started the service so long ago by sending one out 
over the waters — suppose that First is claimed by the 
Navy. Upon their First Crusade, the Christians dis- 
covered that the fore-knowledge which had so puzzled them 
in the Saracens was brought by carrier pigeons. An- 
nouncement of victories in the ancient Olympic games was 
despatched by pigeon post. The Dutch used carriers some- 
what in war, so did other nations, but to no particular 
purpose until the Franco-Prussian war, when besieged 
Paris kept up communication with the outer world despite 
surrounding Germans, in that way. Military despatches 
were microphoto'd upon collodion films which were en- 
larged when received. Whole newspapers were sent in 



346 THE NINETY-FIRST 

this way, as many as 30,000 words being carried by one 
pigeon. This taught the Prussians, who are at least 
"adaptive." Since 1870, then, they have been breeding and 
training both birds and men. Thousands of pigeons are 
now a regular part of war service both on land and sea. 
They are not so successful upon the latter, but it is said 
that even there ninety-five per cent of messages thus 
despatched have been delivered. 

There are several reasons why pigeons are invariably 
used as carriers ; first, their wonderful love of home and 
family. They mate for life and remain true to the bird 
on the nest to which they return at their highest rate of 
speed when released, and that speed is two miles a rninute 
for thirty miles, which of course covers more than the 
enemy's proximity, in rising. Released from the dark 
basket in which they are carried, they dart straight up 
into the air at such a speed that a machine gun cannot 
hit them, circle widely till they get their bearings, and 
then rush for home half a mile above the earth. They 
pay no attention to a terrific barrage, neither fear nor 
hesitate, it is home and mother for pigeons, and they have 
flown 800 miles at one flight. Recent government tests 
have proved that pigeons have actually delivered long 
messages before wireless!. 

Handling war pigeons is dangerous work, but that is 
what seems especially to attract American volunteers, so 
when a call went out from Camp Lewis for the birds, and 
for men to enlist who were experts in breeding, training, 
and handling them, there was instant response. It was 
also announced from Headquarters that men who had such 
experience would be transferred from other army units 
to the signal section if they applied, so another section 
of Signal Corps is already at work in the National Army. 
It seems that fanciers all over the United States have long 
been breeding speedy homers for their own amusement 
and racing them against other lofts, as horses used to 
be raced against other stables, before speed autos made 
horse races slow. So there was good material to begin 
on. All pigeons are naturally homing and swift, but breed- 
ing and training improve everything. 



CAMP LEWIS 347 

Pigeons are found pretty much all over the world, so 
that they do not attract attention as a rare bird would, 
also they are about of a size and much alike, the two 
black bars being all but universal. These points protect 
them in the war zone, but draw the fire of the pot-hunter 
in this country, who might kill a valuable carrier with an 
invaluable message, so Congress has passed a law provid- 
ing a one-hundred dollar fine and six months imprisonment 
as a maximum for ''killing, trapping or in any manner 
possessing," pigeons owned by the United States, the same 
bearing bands marked U. S. A. or U. S. N., and a number. 

At Camp Lewis the new loft was stocked with about 
thirty pigeons. These breed constantly, laying two eggs 
every month in the year, except in severely cold weather 
which seldom exists on Puget Sound. They prefer lofts 
and "pigeon holes," which are named after them, to nests, 
especially if the former are painted white. Yet in the 
early part of the Nineteenth Century, throughout the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, they took to nesting in trees. There were 
sometimes as many as one-hundred nests in a tree which 
often broke down with their weight. For forty miles they 
would swarm, the day would be darkened when they flew. 
They roosted in solid phalanx as large as hogsheads and 
were smoked out and salted down. All these astounding 
facts were vouched for by Audubon and other bird writers. 
Their end was as strange : with advancing civilization, just 
as with the buflfalo, they suddenly disappeared, no one 
knows where. 

Germans had 50,000 and the combined Allies 60,000 
homers at the beginning of the war. The United States 
has over a hundred breeding lofts now, beside those at 
cantonments and posts. At the former, only pedigreed 
racing birds are kept. The cock helps with the hatching, 
though it must be admitted that he is like most fathers, 
does not confine himself long. Still, the four hours he 
does sit, weigh upon his mind to the extent of hundreds of 
thousands of human lives at one battle, perhaps, instead 
of the lives of two homing pigeon, "squeakers," as the 
young are called. Odd thought, that his anxiety to "get 



348 THE NINETY-FIRST 

back home" bears the pregnant message fastened to this 
living wireless. 

Camp Lewis men succeeded very well with their pig- 
eons, which needed not to be of the pedigreed for this 
Volunteer Flying Corps, as pigeons might truly be called. 
The section is taught feeding, affixing the messages with- 
out hurting the little messenger, and experimental flights, 
increased constantly. 

When the 91st Division moved in practice march to 
Roy, it was literally with bag, baggage and bird, for 
along went Co. A. Pigeonry — that's my own, not the of- 
ficial — and when the tiny orderlies were sent with mes- 
sages they did not even wait to exclaim, as in other war 
plays, "I fly," they simply flew, about forty of them. By 
the way, not only the Signal Corps, but all our fighting 
units will carry racing homers at the Front, as they can 
be used when cut off from all other communication to 
announce whereabout to Headquarters, and to give 
information. 

Capt. C. Z. Sutton of the 347th Field Artillery Head- 
quarters Company, was the First at Camp Lewis to use 
pigeons from an airplane. During one of the "battles" 
of the 91st, he went up with an aviator and sent reports 
of the position and strength of the "enemy" to his Colonel 
by pigeons instead of by mounted orderlies. It was un- 
official and a good piece of work of his own seeking. 

Another branch of work was later added to that of 
the Signal Corps, spruce-production for airplanes, 500 
limited service soldiers being at one time ordered to Van- 
couver Barracks in June. 



I 



CAMP LEWIS 349 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE QUARTERMASTER DEPARTMENT'S WIDE SCOPE — LT. COL. 

COLEMAN, DIVISION Q. M. PUP TENTS — LT. COL. COMO, 

CAMP Q. M. — MANY SECTIONS OF Q. M. ACTIVITIES — NEW 
DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION, SEGREGATION AND RE- 
CLAMATION UNDER LIEUT. ROWAN — CAPT. SMITTEN AND 
MAJ. HAYS — FIRST CAMP LEWIS UNIT AND FIRST OFFICER 
NEVILLE — CAPT. MAYBEN AND MISCELLANEOUS DETACH- 
MENT — Q. M. SCHOOL — FIRE PROTECTION — CAMP BAKERY 
— THE COOKS' SCHOOL — CONSERVATION AND LIEUT. 
MALLUM — POST EXCHANGES AND CAPT. OLDENBORG. 

So many and varied are the activities of every depart- 
ment of this great National Army that, looking into each, 
it seems to be almost the whole. This is particularly true 
of the Quartermaster Department, which until a few 
years ago did not include the Commissary nor the Pay 
Departments, as it now does. 

The Master of Quarters supplies them as a small part 
of his agencies, and their fuel; clothing of all sorts and 
warehouses for it; provisions for man, forage for beast, 
and storage for the same; wagons, motors (cycles, cars, 
trucks) ; railway transportation of troops and supplies; 
pay of all and triplicate accounts of moneys; office furni- 
ture and account books, stationery, and typewriters, to 
keep those accounts; and supervision of it all. This is 
but an inkling. Included in the Quartermaster Depart- 
ment are Post Exchanges, bakehouses, conservation, dis- 
posal of garbage; construction of original cantonment, 
additional buildings as needed, their upkeep, repair of 
everything within the Quartermaster's jurisdiction; and, 
in case anything comes under none of these heads, a casual 
department. 



350 THE NINETY-FIRST 

There used to be a saying among first settlers 
in the West where the Indians made offerings from 
everything they possessed, "Oh, give it to the gods" — 
when there seemed to be no other use for it. So, if a 
job does not plainly fall within the province of any other 
camp organization, "Oh, give it to the Quartermaster's." 

For all this immense business there are, of course 
hundreds of clerks who must be educated men, and repre- 
sentatives of all trades. As work cannot fall behind, for 
in the army it is not do what business you can, but do 
all there is, the insignia of the Quartermaster Department 
gains significance. It is a wheel crossed by a key and a 
sword, surmounted by an eagle — transportation, move- 
ment, hustle, with key to stores and money, a sword to 
defend them, a keen-eyed watching eagle, high-soaring, 
far-sweeping, swift, sure, dominating. The Service cord 
is buff — "short for buffer," said young Q. M. "that's what 
the department is." 

Some idea of accounts kept by this Department is 
given in the simple statement that expenditure for Camp 
Lewis during its first fiscal year, apart from the cost of 
its building, was $13,243,429.35, the larger part being for 
"pay of the army." For "supplies, service and transporta- 
tion," $4,396,558.01 was expended, mainly for the first 
item, food for man and beast. Transportation does not 
include bringing drafted men to camp, and "service" is 
mainly for civilians' pay. 

The Quarter master Department is two-fold. Division 
and Camp. The Commanding Officer of the former is Lt. 
Col. F. W. Coleman, a big cordial man who somehow keeps 
his smile on through all the crowding day, for work he 
does, but worry he does not. Now sometimes, generally 
in fact, if the head will not worry, the body of the organ- 
ism must, but in this case Col. Coleman's work is so 
systematized that nobody worries. He is a natural organ- 
izer. There is discipline everywhere, yet no one ever saw 
him out of temper. 

Col. Coleman's ancestors were Holland Dutch, and came 
to this country on the overcrowded 'TMayflower," settling 



CAMP LEWIS 351 

at Plymouth Rock, where the family's tablet is now en- 
graved in the record rooms on the isle of Nantucket. 
His grandfather was Colonel Robert Bunker Coleman of 
New York City, and his father, Major F. W. Coleman, who 
entered the Civil war at the age of twenty-one as a Capt- 
ain of the 161st New York Volunteers, his company being 
organized at Niagara Falls, N. Y. At that time he was a 
Civil Engineer in the construction of the Erie Canal, 
After the Civil war, he remained in the Regular Army for 
ten years, attaining the grade of Captain, and Major by 
brevet on account of wounds received in action at Cold 
Harbor, Virginia. 

Frederick W. Coleman was born in Maryland, 1878, 
had already finished college and was studying law when 
the Spanish-American war broke out. Being eager to fight, 
he was commissioned by the President direct from civil 
life, and appointed Second-Lieutenant of the 13th Infantry, 
when just twenty years old. There were but two younger 
officers at the time, and he is now one of the youngest 
officers of his rank in the United States army. 

He went at once to the Philippines where he remained 
three and a half years and was promoted to a First-Lieu- 
tenancy. There the insurrectos were living off their own 
people, and murders among themselves were so common 
as to attract no attention, but in a whole year after our 
troops took over the province of Pangasinan there was 
but one murder. 

Lieutenant Coleman became Captain in 1905 and joined 
the 10th Infantry. He was on duty at the time of the 
earthquake in San Francisco and went with the 10th to 
Alaska. Two years later it was ordered to Panama, and 
for four years Capt. Coleman served there, part of the 
time co-ordinating with the Engineers upon a huge tacti- 
cal map of the region, covering five miles each side of the 
Canal, clearing the jungle to the tops of mountains to 
obtain their broad view, each sector covering its square 
mile and connecting it with the next, like fitting a puzzle 
picture. The last year at the Canal, Capt. Coleman was 
Provost-Marshal in the City of Panama and Commander 



352 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




I 



LT. COL. F. W. COLEMAN 

of the American Provost Guard. He became Major in 
May of 1917 and in August was appointed Lieutenant- 
Colonel in the National Army, coming to Camp Lewis as 
Quartermaster of the 91st Division on the 5th of that 
month. In the Spring he was detailed as Acting Chief 
of Operation Section upon Gen. Greene's Staff, another 
promotion. Col. Coleman has been closely associated with 



CAMP LEWIS 353 

the General for six years, in Alaska, and with the rirst 
United States troops to occupy the Canal Zone, where he 
was Adjutant of the 10th Infantry. There was but eight 
months' break in their connection, when Capt. Coleman 
was in the Commissary Department in Chicago. He was 
in the oflfice of the Quartermaster-General at Washington 
when war broke out and a widely experienced man was 
needed for this largest of cantonments. This snapshot of 
the Colonel and six-year-old Frederick W. III., was taken 
at Camp Lewis just before the former left for France. 

Col. Coleman was a member of the U. S. Infantry 
Rifle Team 1910, which won the championship of the 
United States at Camp Perry, Ohio, and later won the 
famous Dryden Trophy of New Jersey at the State Rifle 
Range at Seagart. More than that, he wears the hand- 
some Distinguished Rifle Shot Medal awarded him by 
Congress in 1910, "the dogs of war" still in leash. This 
means he was the best shot of the best shots in the entire 
United States Army, Navy, and Marines, at three succes- 
sive annual contests, which are ari-inged with the great- 
est attention to detail. Candidates must qualify in their 
own units. The successful teams from every State meet 
in January and the winners undergo intensive training 
till August, for the honor is greatly desired by the regi- 
ment as well as the man. Twelve are selected for the 
army. At Camp Perry, Col. Coleman says there must 
have been about 900 shooting, targets standing for a mile 
and a half. When the final test comes, twelve shoot at 
six targets, all at one instant, that there may be no ques- 
tion of change of wind or other conditions. You can 
imagine a man must have marvelous skill not only, but 
a self-control and steadiness of will as wonderful, to win 
such a contest, among his peers, three successive years. 
No temperish man, nor man of moods, could do it. As 
was mentioned, Col. Whitworth holds the Distinguished 
Pistol Shot Medal, won in the same manner. 

The Infantry has taken this medal three times in fifteen 
years, which is an incentive to every man on the rifle 
range at Camp Lewis. It is something too, to see three 

§ 24 



354 THE NINETY-FIRST 

such rare trophies in their own cantonment, the ch"max 
of their own first honors, the "Marksman" badge, for 
Americans are the best shots in the world. The third to 
hold the coveted Distinguished Shot Medal is Major Charles 
E. Reese of the 44th Infantry, for rifle. 

Col. Coleman has seen much Staff duty, served for a 
time upon the General Stafi" and was Assistant Chief of 
Staff the latter part of his time at Camp Lewis. Asked 
what was the most difficult thing in his position here, he 
answered readily, "Getting enough out-size uniforms and 
shoes from the government for a Division which runs into 
cloth and leather as this one does." The Colonel himself 
is a good example of this. When the Ninety-First goes 
into Germany, the inhabitants will think a race of giants 
has been bred against them, to offset their under-handed 
preparation begun before these men were born to conquer 
them. 

Speaking of giants, one day a company of Infantrymen 
were setting up pup tents on the parade ground. One of 
the soldiers was still ununiformed because of his immense 
size. Now a pup-tent is so called because it is just about 
the size and shape of a dog-kennel, and two men occupy 
it. If this recruit could lie on both sides of the prop- 
sticks and wind his feet about one of them, he would have 
plenty of room in a pup-tent. He was one of Col. Cole- 
man's problems. 

That tent-drill, by the way, was interesting. Each of 
the "dog shelter" mates carried half of the outfit in a 
canvas roll. At the word, he would untie this, remove 
his side of the khaki roof and button to the middle of the 
other's. The fastenings are snaps like glove buttons. One 
man's place is at the front, the other's at the rear. Each 
has a jointed stick in his roll which now he stands at an 
end to support his lowly roof. Next each draws the at- 
tached guy ropes taut and pins to the ground through 
made loops, with pegs of wood or aluminum. They were 
testing both, but the aluminum pegs were weak sisters 
and, generally, doubled uselessly when struck. These, in- 
cidentally, were issued by the Ordnance Department, and. 



CAMP LEWIS 355 

as Maj. Herring said, proved a failure. It was interest- 
ing to see differences in men about driving these pins. 
Some big fellows, accustomed to making their strength 
itself a tool, drove them into the hard ground with their 
heels; some looked helplessly about for a hammer, some 
readily seized upon the Glacier's, the stone with which it 
beat this region into shape. 

It was pleasant to see the Captain's smile as he watched 
the Company set up their tents in prescribed form, then 
front-man and rear-man stand at attention. 

"Now don't you call that good work for only the second 
lesson? They will soon be experts, my men will." He looked 
at one wabbly tent, its ridge wavy and guy-ropes slack, and 
said, ''If you pitched your tent like that on a rainy, blowy 
night in France, you would likely have it about your ears 
just as you dropped asleep. Build your houses well, boys, and 
with some armfuls of dry grass, or boughs for bed and 
the dirt taken from one side of the canvas heaped along 
the other to drain it, you'll be comfortable." 

Such was the encouragement and reproof of that 
Captain, — wish I had asked his name, but there were many 
of him at Camp Lewis training this new, green, but eager 
army. 

But to return to the Quartermaster Department: there 
were over seventy warehouses for its various stores, by 
February. These are being continually increased in num- 
bers and size. Four immense ones are filled with clothing, 
under charge of Capt. W. Ruddock. You see civilians 
discard their wear completely, and the apparel of 50,000 
men supplied with two suits, overcoats, hats, and several 
suits of underwear, makes a considerable closet necessary, 
especially as even quarter sizes are made, in order to fit 
enlisted men as comfortably and nattily as possible in 
ready-made clothes. Officers have theirs made to order. 
As for shoes, ninety sizes are kept, and yet our 91st Divis- 
ion men have had them made to order. One of you wears 
No. 16. 

One warehouse holds only typewriters. There is also 
a repair shop for them. That is a Compensation of this 
war, instruction in the repair of everything which is 



356 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



furnished, that means less boarding houses and more 
homes after the war. 

****** **** 

If there is anything about the Quartermaster Depart- 
ment that Lt. Col. James F. Como does not know, it 
must be the Quartermaster-General who can mention it. 




LT. COL. JAMES F. COMO 

Officially, he is Constructing Quartermaster for Camp 
Lewis, supervising its labor, including civilians. He has 
advanced most unusually in the army from sheer ability, 
having enlisted as a private in 1891 when the Sioux were 
acting the bad Indian for the last time. But a man like 
Como was not born for privacy, any more than his pro- 



CAMP LEWIS 357 

genitors were. The Comeaux, Huguenots, came to the 
New World from France in 1500, and were of the ill- 
-fated Acadians. Some remained in Canada and, today, 
twenty-three of their descendants are fighting in Canadian 
regiments in the France that drove them forth nearly 
four centuries ago. Como's great-grandfather — the Amer- 
ican side has simplified the name, — headed a party of 
the exiles and settled them in New Acadia, site of the 
present camp at Plattsburg, curious connections when you 
recall that Col. Como is in the army in that 

"Far West, ivhere the moimtains, 

Lift through perpetual snoivs, their lofty and luminous 

summits, 
Down from the ragged, deep ravines, ivhere the gorge, 

like a gateway. 
Opens a passage rude to the ivheels of the emigrant's 

wagon, 
Westward the Oregon flotvs," — 

whence Gabriel came. 

This Como must have more than a convenient conscien- 
tiousness, since upon his mother's side, he is lineally de- 
scended from the stalwart preacher John Robinson, who 
almost seems to belong to my family, for, upon a rock in a 
large steel engraving which hung in our dining room, just 
where I saw it every meal when I raised my eyes after "the 
blessing," John Robinson preached his sermon, longer even 
than in life, to the group of Pilgrim Fathers and meek 
Mothers grouped about him. 

On both sides there have been many fighters in all 
the wars of our Country to the Como's credit, so when 
the Spanish-American loomed, James F. enlisted again, 
served both in Cuba and the Philippines. He had been 
instructor in post school and trained in the old Commis- 
sary Department, so when the Quartermaster Corps was 
organized he was transferred to that, being already 
recognized as an expert. Three years before this he had 
taken an examination which gave him a Second-Lieuten- 



358 THE NINETY-FIRST 

ancy. Two years later he wore the silver bar, and ten 
years after, two of them. On the Mexican Border he was 
in charge of distributing supplies along hundreds of miles. 
Maj. Como came to Camp Lewis, and Lt.-Col. Como 
remains. 

From the Division of the work, some idea can be 
gained of the scope of the Quartermaster Department and 
its big Pay Office near the bus station. This, for enlisted 
men and civilians, is under Capt. Hoff ; second. Subsistence 
— for 50,000 men, — Capt. Gladwin ; third, Clothing and 
Equipage, tents typewriters, etc. Capt. Bramstadt ; fourth, 
Fuel and Forage, hay, oats, cottonseed meal, Capt. Timmer ; 
fifth, Fire Department, Lieut. Mantor; sixth. Motor 
Truck Company, Lieut. Neville, and the Mechanician Re- 
pair Unit for motors, cycles and field trains, Lieut. Synder; 
seventh. Utilities, maintenance of water and light systems, 
and buildings, Maj. Hays, — with seven officers and four- 
hundred men ; eighth, Laundrying, Drying and Renovating 
of Clothing; and, ninth. Conservation, Segregation and 
Reclamation, Lieut. Rowan. 

This last department is new to our army which has 
hitherto been, like the Nation itself, extravagent, at least 
in the destruction of immense "refuse" none of which is 
refused now, even broken glass being sold back to factories 
for seven dollars a ton, whereas bottles and jars bring a 
good price. Tin cans, nearly two tons a day, are col- 
lected, flattened under a press, and sold in fifty-pound 
blocks for ten dollars a ton, F. 0. B. Manure is con- 
tracted for by ranchers and sold, 160 tons a day. Garbage 
is carefully assorted in Company kitchens and placed in 
the several, labeled cans which are washed out every day. 
Ten pounds of garbage equals one pound of hog, and the 
man who has secured that contract, raises more than 3000 
hogs near Camp Lewis. All grease is tried out now, quite 
in the manner of a careful housewife, and when you 
consider that every soldier at camp is allowed a pound 
and a quarter of meat a day, that means something. 
Ground bones produce glycerine, so much needed now. 

Straw from enlisted men's mattresses used to be 
burned, now it becomes bedding for horses. Papers and 



CAMP LEWIS 359 

magazines, were also burned, but thirty-five tons weekly 
spells income, in these days of paper shortage, so they 
are baled and shipped. One building contributes nothing 
to this saving, however, Division Headquarters, where the 
contents of the waste basket would reveal secrets which 
the enemy would pay its spies well to gain. Every scrap 
of paper in this building is therefore burned, and under 
the eyes of an officer. 

Baling wire has never been re-used until this very 
sensible campaign began at camp. Now it is straightened, 
wound, and comes handy in the Quartermast«r Depart- 
ment. Horse-hair is saved when shearing is necessary, 
and sold for padding, mattresses, etc. Sacks which used 
to bring three cents apiece, if anyone saved them, bring 
from sixteen to twenty cents apiece now, and 27,000 were 
shipped at one time. 

Conservation of forests is a modern thing in the United 
States, but trees are still recklessly felled in localities. 
Diasters attendant upon the Huns' deliberate destruction 
of trees in Belgium and France, have made people think 
in the United States. At first, there was lack of system 
in felling timber at Camp Lewis, but Gen. Greene issued 
an order that no trees should henceforth be cut for any 
purpose, except those selected and marked by an officer 
in authority. So conserved, the fir forests upon the can- 
tonment will last for generations. Lumber, too, had been 
recklessly used, and left-overs burned. Uncle Sam has 
his woodshed now, and when Aunt Columbia wants a coal- 
shed built, or a shelf put up, young Sammy goes there and 
selects from what there is. 

Young Sam was very careless with his clothes too, for 
Uncle furnished him new uniforms when his were worn 
or even torn. Nowadays he is not given a new suit till 
his old has had as many new parts fitted in as the One 
Hoss Shay had, 

Lieut. J. V, Rowan, who is in charge of this entirely 
new department of our National Army, Conservation, 
Segregation and Reclamation, has really accomplished 
wonders in the short period of its operations, and is en- 



360 THE NINETY-FIRST 

thusiastic in devising new uses for old things. He has 
already schemed out so many that there is not enough 
actual "trash trash" left to heat necessary hot water, and 
the incinerator itself bids fair to become an extravagance. 

With pardonable pride the Lieutenant shows warehouses 
containing sorted materials, in no wise harmed for other 
use, packed in cases whose original addresses are painted 
over, and strengthened with baling wire which hitherto 
had no further use than causing profanity from entangled 
passersby. Take shoes, for instance, men who have "cob- 
bled" before, are working at up-to-date electrically driven 
machines repairing 250 pairs of shoes a day. Until Spring 
these were sent to shops in nearby cities where the charge 
for repairs was considerable, beside bringing up the cost 
to civilians. Shoes are mended with new materials as 
long as they are worth it, and then with the better parts 
of other worn-out travelers. Such shoes serve for un-dress 
parade, anyway. In this reformatory not only are soles 
saved, but every scrap of leather, grown so costly. 

My family laugh at the "ridiculous things" I conserve, 
so nothing Lieut. Rowan showed of his reclamations ex- 
ceeded mine but one, I must give him credit for having 
a large box with thousands upon thousands of brass rings 
which, out of their environment, one looks at twice to 
recognize. Yes, small eyelets from shoes, in one packing 
box, from leggings, in an other. Canvas leggings are, of 
course, washable and lasting, but even they give up Anally, 
as leggings, but are used for stiffening in coats and in 
many other ways. 

The tailor shop employs about thirty soldier expert 
workers repairing uniforms with stout portions of dis- 
carded garments, which match better than new. Rags 
are sold. Uniforms are dry-cleaned for twenty cents. 

Since Lieut. Rowan put his wits to work upon the 
problem, the only point of vantage in the army of the Teu- 
tons is lost, for it, surely, used everything but humanity 
and decency. 

Speaking of shoes, 'twas while the Ninety-First was 
at Camp Lewis that the government ordered that 10,000 



CAMP LEWIS 361 

men's feet should be measured, and both feet, for few 
match. This, too, was conducted under charge of a Q. M. 
man, Lieut. J. B. Catlin, with Capt. J. C. Carling of the 
Orthopedic Department as consultant. Your Country in- 
tends to leave no stone unturned — even at Camp Lewis — 
to make its sons comfortable. 

The United States Army is the cleanest in the world, 
inside and out. It is protected and inspected for the 
former, and provided for and inspected for the latter. 
Soldiers must show clean clothes once a week and the Post 
Laundry solves the problem, handling about a million 
pieces monthly. These are collected and returned to 
barracks, twice a week, and charged against the men's 
pay, at cost. Soldiers have little time for doing their 
own laundry work, but may if they wish. Nearly 200 
laundries with up-to-date equipment are now built behind 
barracks, also drying rooms. Until these were erected, 
soldiers had no way of drying heavy uniforms after drill 
in a Puget Sound rainy Winter. Maj. Hays, one of the 
original Construction Quartermaster Corps, supervised 
this great improvement. Another officer who came with 
Maj. Stone, was associated with him in Camp construction, 
and was one of the last to leave the cantonment, is Capt. 
Howard Smitten. 

Speaking of Camp Lewis pioneers, recalls Motor Truck 
Company No. 355, which ivas the First organization of 
any kind at Camp Lewis. They came in May, and iheir 
three-ton trucks hauled lumber for the cantonment to be. 
Lieut. Fred Neville, of Los Angeles, has therefore the 
distinction of being the First Coynmanding Officer at Cam}) 
Leivis. Motor Truck Company No. 355 celebrated its 
birthday with a dinner. 

In country general stores, carrying everything from 
a baby cap to a coffin, hangs a sign, "If you don't see 
what you want, ask for it." In this Wholesale and Retail, 
Buying and Selling, Quartermaster's Department Store, if 
you don't see what you want go to the basement, otherwise 
the Miscellaneous Detachment, Capt. John Mayben, Man- 
ager, who has the largest Company force, 440 men. These 



362 THE NINETY-FIRST 

are specialists. There is not a bit of work in this entire 
camp city that some man in this human miscellany cannot 
do. As one of them said, "If anything new turns up, and 
everybody else falls down on it, we can, and do, do it." 
They take after their head. Capt. Mayben had years of 
experience in the regular army, was in the subsistence 
department at Murray, and came over as assistant to 
Maj. Stone in the building of Camp Lewis, so he is a 
pioneer also. He was afterward designated as Camp Dis- 
bursing Officer. 

There was a Quartermaster School also, conducted by 
Lieut. R. J. Graham and largely attended six nights in 
the week by enlisted men hoping for appointment to the 
Quartermaster Officers Training, at Camp Johnston. 
Lectures were given by experts upon the varied branches 
of Q. M. Certainly, in all its arms, there never was a 
more ambitious cityful of men than you, Ninety-First. 

The fire department is a part of the Camp Q. M. D. 
Six engine houses with the finest of modern equipment 
and manned by fifty experienced fire fighters protect the 
camp. Did you ever think how well a city like Camp 
Lewis, small compared with others, is served, because of 
the opportunity of choosing experts in every line, from 
many workers trained in many methods and localities? 
Some of these men enlisted, others were selected from the 
draft because of long experience in fire fighting. 

Lieut. George M. Mantor, formerly battalion chief of 
Seattle's Fire Department, is in command at Camp Lewis, 
and it is more than probable that neither another can- 
tonment, nor any city in the United States holds such a 
wonderful fire, or rather fire-less, record as Lieut. Mantor 
has established there, less than $2000 loss in ten months. 

In response to a diaphone alarm which has been in- 
stalled, every building is instantly vacated, all men 
lining in front of their own and awaiting further 
orders or dismissal by its signal. Fire breaks with 
hydrants occur at regular intervals and everything pos- 
sible is done to obviate danger of fires. The copious water 
supply is under continual guard and cannot be approached 



CAMP LEWIS 363 

without a pass. Three firemen are detailed to every 
performance at Liberty Theater. 

"Well," remarks Mother, "it is reassuring to learn 
that, but I know he misses my bread." Of course no one 
would be brute enough to deny it, but the fact is Son 
doesn't, and if she were to visit the great bakehouse be- 
yond Division Headquarters and near the engine house, 
she would know why. Looking over the thousands of 
loaves, cooling upon racks to the ceiling, smelling like a 
year of home bake-days, the expert bakers do not say, 
"Yes, I had good luck with my bread today." There is 
no luck about it, and the bread is always good, though 
Bakery Company No. 331, Q. M. C, makes eight and a half 
tons of it in two-pound loaves which are distributed 
to company mess sergeants every day. There are 
three eight-hour shifts. The mixers begin at midnight 
and work till six; other mixers and moulders replace them 
and work till noon ; the third shift finishes. 

"They must have enormous mixing machines," they 
have none. Such conveniences could not be carried to 
the Field, so men do this by hand, and brawny arm. Each 
trough holds 400 pounds, and three men work it. That 
is a man's size job, too, isn't it Mother? Perhaps that is 
how Hardini, "the handcuff king," of the 344th Baker's 
Company, Q. M. C. keeps up his practice. He certainly 
had lost no skill when he performed in the "Miscellaneous" 
vaudeville which packed the big Y-Auditorium. 

At first, what was sauce for the goose was not, as 
usual, sauce for the gander, and while home cooks were 
struggling with substitutes, Uncle Sam's men-folks had 
nothing but wheat bread. However, that is all changed. 
His bakers, have experimented to good effect, with best 
results for oatmeal or one-third rolled oats. Sergeant says. 
It certainly tasted good, better than all-wheat bread. 

The immense ovens bake 3600 pounds of bread an 
hour. For the 25,000 two-pound loaves, 18,000 pounds of 
flour are used, 250 pounds of sugar, 200 of salt, 130 of 
compressed yeast, and 60 of lard — quite a daily baking, 
Mother. Two kinds of bread are made, for immediate 



364 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



use, and Field bread. The latter has less water and, 
officially, will keep fresh for two weeks, but the fact is that 
on the Mexican Border, Field bread was perfectly good 
three months after baking, dry of course, but after wrap- 
ping in wet cloths and heating for fifteen minutes, it tasted 
like fresh-baked, the Sergeant says. Bread is kept upon 
racks for twenty-four hours, being indigestible before. 

Behind the bakery you will see a number of Field 
ovens, which are in constant use so as to accustom men to 
work in the open. Each oven will bake 108 two-pound 
loaves an hour. These ovens are collapsible and can be 
readily set up behind the lines, for baking is done from 
forty to sixty miles to the rear so that supplies may not 
be seized. It speaks well for the bakers, however, that 
although this is true, and pay for them is much higher 




FIELD OVEN * 



* Loaned by the Pacific Builder and Enginer, to which magazine 
credit is also due for items concerning the part of several civilians in 
building the cantonment. 



CAMP LEWIS 365 

than for fighting men, being $75 a month, while they drill 
but one hour a day, there are never enough, so that the 
age limit was first removed to obtain older men for bakers. 
It was all well enough to tell the younger enlisted men 
that food wins the war, but they wanted to wield a bay- 
onet instead of a poker and be "doughboys" in khaki, not 
white. The government furnishes, and launders, three 
white suits and twenty-four undershirts. The latter, 
sleeveless, are worn in the warm rooms. 

Food in our Army used to be furnished raw and every 
man cooked his own ! When soldiers discovered some one 
who could and would cook for them, they "chipped in" and 
paid him to do it. Dishes were washed at least once dur- 
ing a campaign. Now, a mess kitchen and pantry would 
shame any housewife. Every article upon a shelf is re- 
moved and wiped off every day and the shelf washed. 
When my pantry heard that, it did not say one word, but 
it looked it. 

Did you know that there is a large Cooks' School con- 
stantly in session at Camp Lewis? There are 200 students 
from the various organizations, half being always new. 
The food at this school is cooked under instruction, and 
is delicious. The Sergeant in charge makes out menus 
and is allowed pro rata in drawing. He said he was doing 
it for 37.87 cents a day apiece and had cleared $133 that 
month. This can only be expended, however, for food, 
which seems to a layman very much like pulling your- 
self over a fence by your bootstraps. This Mess Sergeant 
was trained in the Regular Army Cooks' School at Mon- 
terey, graduates from which are assigned as instructors 
to sixteen other schools in different States. If they show 
aptitude, after their training, they remain for another 
month and are in line for promotion. 

Students were preparing a meal when I was there, 
and it certainly looked good. I was invited to look for 
dirt or specks of dust, even on the rafters and pipes. I 
looked around but found none, and not being a fly, took 
their word for the rafters, as they are wiped off every 
day. The floor is cleaned as often and every cook must 



366 THE NINETY-FIRST 

take a bath daily. As there are eleven inspectors whose 
sole business in life is to drop in any minute in the day, 
and who do — eight had already investigated things, that 
morning — these cooks are a close next to godliness. Lieut. 
James Atterbury is Division Meat Inspector. 

Wonder what Wilkes' sailors would think of all this? 
In 1841, they dug the first trench on this cantonment and 
roasted the first meat here by hanging an ox over it from 
saplings, also they mixed the first dough on these premises 
in a hollowed log. 

Each company in the 91st Division now has two cooks 
which have taken a two months' course in this school and 
there is absolutely no occasion for any grumbling at the 
"chow" served at any mess in camp, but, you know, some 
men would complain over a meal on Olympus and say the 
ambrosia of the gods was not fit to drink. At first, of 
course, there was often reason from complaint, some 
companies having a St. Francis chef and some a moving 
picture star who thought meals grew on a mahogany table 
land. Sergt. Keegan and his six instructors have changed 
all this. Students are even taught the different acids which 
aid in leavening. 

Cooks' sleeves bear the round cap of their trade as 
emblem upon the sleeve. Capt. I. A. de Young is Division 
Mess Officer who supervises the entire school and, in 
general, the cantonment mess condition. He was Senior 
Grade Instructor at Monterey. The War Department even 
sent their best man in this branch to Camp Lewis. 

Lieut. Harold Mallum is in charge of Food Conserva- 
tion, as he was of the financial end of the All-Star Foot- 
ball game in the Fall. He became an authority in this 
campaign in rather an odd manner. While at the Univer- 
sity of California he became interested in the subject of 
dietetics and nutrition. There were plenty of doctors; 
he would forestall them. He headed the work for forty 
Fraternity Houses, keeping forty-two sets of books. He 
served upon a committee with Dr. Wylie, national organ- 
izer, 1914. Lieut. Mallum was called to Columbia Col- 
lege where he spent the next year, then returned to San 



CAMP LEWIS 



867 




LIEUT. HAROLD MALLIiM 



Francisco and was concerned with the dining car system 
of the Southern Pacific. He attended the Presidio Train- 
ing Camp and is now assistant to Capt. de Young and in 
immediate charge of food conservation. 



Nothing is more significant of the great change from 
the Regular Army of the United States of but a few years 
back, to our new National Army, than the difference be- 
tween the former's Canteen and the latter's Post Exchange. 
The canteen, selling liquor which brought its buyers noth- 
ing but the guardhouse and empty pockets, and the Post 
Exchange where nothing stronger than pop is sold, but 
almost everything else that a soldier wants, and whose 
profits return, if not into his individual pockets, into those 



368 THE NINETY-FIRST 

of his Company. There is an Exchange contiguous to 
every organization, twenty-two, with more building, and 
a soldier is supposed to patronize his own. If he does not, 
the profits upon his purchases remain outside his unit. 
When dividends are declared, the Companies may expend 
them as they agree. For instance. Company I, 361st. 
Infantry, gave a St. Patrick's day dinner to officers of other 
Companies in their regiment in recognition of their ex- 
penditures at the Post Exchange, whose dividends had 
just purchased Company I a pool table, $150 worth of 
baseball paraphernalia, and several sets of boxing gloves. 
Dividends are computed monthly and paid in proportion 
to Company strength. Smokers, banquets, balls, improve- 
ments around barracks, etc., all result from Post Exchange 
dividends. 

Another advantage, as the soldiers view it, but a 
doubtful one; since some spend more by coupon than they 
can afford or would spend if they handed over cash, is 
credit. Through their Company Commander, men out of 
money may obtain coupons good till pay day. 

Soldiers can buy almost anything they need at these 
camp stores without going to town, but trade is prin- 
cipally in tobacco, ice cream, candy, and pop. Judging 
by the average sale of 144,000 bottles of pop a month at 
Camp Lewis, thousands of men were brought up on the 
bottle and have never been weaned from it. Wonder if 
they really like pop, which tastes as it sounds, or just 
like a bottle? That many have been accustomed to liquor, 
accounts for the tremendous sale of candy which men find 
dulls desire for stimulants. This is particularly true of 
Calif ornians. The Post Exchange adjacent to the 364 tli 
Infantry takes in $500 a day for candy alone. One of 
the four Depot Brigade Exchanges sold $2200 worth of 
candy May 18, and a soldier's candy day is from about 
5:15 P. M. to 10:45 P. M. During May, that Exchange 
took in $41,000 for trifles. No wonder the government has 
advertised for 500,000 pounds of candy for overseas 
soldiers, and notifies manufacturers that successful bid- 
ders will be furnished requisite sugar! No wonder home 



CAMP LEWIS 369 

people are allowed but two pounds of sugar a month! 
Government is also catering to the national vice, by 
advertising for 400,000 packages of chewing gum. For- 
eigners say American jaws never rest, and they are al- 
most right. The Depot Brigade Exchanges do the biggest 
business, because the new men are quartered there, and 
at first they eat, it does seem, for company. Bar chocolate 
is a great favorite and fancy cakes and ice cream cones. 
They are like so many children for such things. No 
wonder that, according to camp auditing, the enormous 
sum of $1,777,676 was spent by the 91st Division in its 
Exchanges up to May 30, and this mostly in small sums, 
as the cash registers recording them prove. They indicate 
25,000,000 sales ! The profits, since neither labor nor 
rent and its incidentals do not cut in, are from twenty 
to twenty-five percent, all, as has been said, in dividends 
to Company funds. The next Division will have more 
and larger Post Exchanges. 

The Division Post Exchange officer for the Ninety- 
First is Capt Dieterick Oldenborg, who has been made 
Camp Exchange Commander and so remains at the can- 
tonment. 

A New Yorker, his family an old one of Holland 
extraction, he was graduated from Yale in 1912. Hav- 
ing taken an engineering course, he entered upon an 
adventurous career in several lands. He and a college 
friend mined in New Mexico. He went to Old Mexico 
and South America, being connected with the world-wide 
activities of Standard Oil, and finally started for Asia 
Minor with a shipload of three-inch galvanized pipe, 
miles of it, early in August, 1914. Palestine, of all 
countries to be mentioned in connection with Standard 
Oil, had struck oil ! Humanly speaking, the Holy Land 
was to be delivered from the Unspeakable Turk and the 
Unthinkable Hun by a shipload of pipe commandeered by 
a young American not even in uniform then. 

He had sailed for Jaffa, but while at sea his company 
ordered him, by wireless, not to proceed to that post, so 
he landed the pipe at Alexandria. That he did so, re- 

§ 25 



370 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAPT. DIETERICK OT^DENBORG 



suited in the entrance of the British into Jerusalem, for 
their troops could never have crossed the Sahara without 
water, and those miles of pipe taken for oil, furnished it. 

So the unholy Germans lost the Holy City, and the 
Jews will come at last to their Father's house, and the 
flag of David flies in the City of David, and Dieterick 
Oldenborg was the unwitting instrument of the marvel. 

Capt. Oldenborg saw much of the mobilization of 
the Turks and their rapid training under Prussian 
brutality. He returned to this Country and decided to 
enter the reserve officers training camp at Plattsburg, 
not that he then anticipated our entrance into the war, 
but he wanted the experience. So now he is Captain 



CAMP LEWIS 371 

and Post Exchange Officer and the husband of Miss 
Maisie McMaster whom he met at Hostess House, in a 
camp that is training men for a war which, four years 
ago did not seem likely to engulf us. Be sure that of 
all this Dieterick Oldenborg expected nothing when his 
chief worry was to find room for himself in a stateroom 
on that vessel bound for Jaffa, for Capt. Oldenborg is a 
giant, yet so well built that you would hardly credit him, 
when standing apart from other men, with his six-feet- 
six of height. 



372 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER XX 

THE INTELLIGENCE SCHOOL — CAMP LEWIS' NO MAN'S LAND 
— LIEUT. SHAW — S. 0. S., SCOUTING, OBSERVATION, 
SNIPING — GAS TRENCHES, DRILL, PRECAUTIONS — LIEUT. 
WARRELL — CAPT. CHAMPION AND SERGEANT MIRAT. 

Tis rather a steep road from the far side of the 
cantonment up to No Man's Land, typically steep, ris- 
ing from the level of ordinary life to the heights of 
sacrifice and death which this No Man's Land forebodes, 
and it hugs the pleasant hillside all the way. One turns 
often to look back and down, oftener near the top, 
where the whole cantonment spreads to view, bounded by 
low wooded hills, Mt. Tacoma far to the East, American 
Lake near to the West, the great maneuvers plain in the 
center stretching to the broad Artillery ranges on the 
far side, to the Rifle ranges and the paddocks beyond 
the Remount on the near, very beautiful, very peaceful. 
But from it all your eyes will turn to the camp itself, 
which, from Headquarters buildings, along three wide 
thoroughfares, follows the low hills on both sides, turning 
beckwards a little at the ends and forming, as for the 
last time you turn to look, a giant wishbone. Myriad 
the wishes that have formed it, that dwell within it, that 
draw toward it! 

Back from the brow of the hill, at the edge of the 
wood, is an upland flat of glacier bed which has been 
converted into a No Man's Land ar desolate, surelv. as 
its namesake. Trenches of regulation depth and width 
have been dug, with "islands" as in France. These are 
squares of ground at intervals bounded on all sides by 
trenches, so that when the wounded are carried back at 



CAMP LEWIS 373 

one side they may not meet and hinder those who go 
to dare the same fate, islands swept by a rushing tide of 
destruction, an ebb-tide of human wreckage. Here and 
there shell holes gape. Beyond are barbed wire entangle- 
ments which define the enemy's side, hung with cans, 
bits of iron, anything to sound the alarm at a touch, and, 
entangled, human-like forms. Stray "bodies" lie upon 
the ground and at varying heights, bayonet targets. 

The forest had never encroached upon this place, 
knowing ages ago that it was to serve a special purpose, 
not of weal but wile, should bear not grain but brain ; 
for of this stone foundation is the Academy of Mars, 
whereon no halls uprise but wherein many sink, the 
School of Intelligence. Surely of all the schools conducted 
at Camp Lewis, which itself might be called the common 
school, and these others (Signal, Divisional Arms, Bakers', 
Horseshoers' and the like), technical; with Officers Train- 
ing Camp, the finishing school — did not that suggest the 
idiotic name of a generally idiotic school for turning out 
debutantes, the antithesis of a School of Intelligence, — 
the last is surely the most interesting. Its short name 
is the S. 0. S., not referring to the distress call, though 
its course prevents such need, but Scouting, Observation 
and Sniping. To this school are detailed men picked from 
the intelligence section of every fighting organization in 
camp, men found fitted for this dangerous but fascinating 
work, wherein more must be learned than can be taught. 
Such schools are new to our army, as, in fact, to any 
other, as the problems worked out by them have never 
before been proposed. 

Camp Lewis had the First Intelligence School under 
way in the cantonments. It was originated by Captain, 
now Major, E. A. Powell, American war correspondent, 
who, though not a fighter, nor trained in intelligence work 
himself, had observed much upon many points since the 
beginning of this war. He was joined by Lieut. R. Leslie 
Shaw, of the British Military Detail, who had distinguished 
himself in intelligence work with the army in France. 
Shaw joined the Sherwood Foresters, whose name recalls 



374 THE NINETY-FIRST 

the adroit daring of Robin Hood, in August, 1914, but 
was transferred to a Bedfordshire regiment the next 
January, with which he served in France, a part of the 
famous 7th Division. He was wounded at the battle of 
Looz that year, and again at the Somme in 1916. In- 
vaHded home, he was ordered •- *he United States with 
the Mission and sent to Camn "t -wis in October, 1917. 
Lieut. Shaw was especially trained for intelligence work 
at the Sniping School at Aldershot, which, oddly, means 
Oldshot, and also in the First Army School in France. 
So that the 91st Division may again congratulate itself 
in ha vine the best of practical and aracticed instruction. 

Details, of course, of intelligence work are not allow- 
able, but enough can be touched upon to interest. If 
you drop the er from escouter, French for to listen, to 
hear, watch, observe, you will have their word for spy; 
if you clip the e, 'tis the American form which we like bet- 
ter, scout. No better scouts has the world ever known 
than American-Americans, Indians, and those associated 
with them in olden times. Of the former, but of course 
of peaceful generations, more than 5,000 enlisted in our 
army, and many are being drafted; of the latter, a few 
still remain, with whom others, like Capt. Thornberry, 
have been trained. Capt. Thornberry has been invaluable 
to the Intelligence School since its inception until trans- 
ferred to the Military Police in Spring. He taught jui- 
jitsu and trained others to give instruction in that which 
enables a man, surprised and unarmed, to protect himself 
and to kill his foe. 

Scouting parties are sent out from the Intelligence 
School to bring in maps of "enemy country" and informa- 
tion of every kind. These men must evade sentries and 
prowlers from the other side, and in broad daylight 
return undiscovered to their quarters on No Man's Land, 
which has two sets of trenches, understand, exact 
replica of an Allies versus Hun section in France. This 
is no easy task for anyone, especially for a city man 
whose house stands two blocks from a street car, or a 
sidewalk distant from his auto, whose beaten track is 



CAMP LEWIS 375 

from an elevator to a desk, and on to a bookcase. Such 
a man has never crawled since he learned to walk, never 
climbed since he was a boy, never walked since he rode, 
and would drop with heart failure if he ran. He cannot 
swim, yet is utterly at sea in a wood "where you can't 
tell where you are, every tree looks like every other," 
and even a country road is destitute of street signs and 
numbers. 

It is strange how soon this fellow learns to reconnoitre, 
to recognize, to know again where once he has passed, 
to read a signboard in a broken twig. There was 
First-Lieutenant De Witt Evans, Tacoma lawyer, who, 
graduated from the Presidio Training Camp, was 
detailed to the 363rd Infantry Headquarters Company 
Intelligence Section. He picked his men, naturally 
largely from his own college, Stanford, as the 363rd is 
Californian. Their trained minds gloried in the brain, 
and their athletics in the brawn, of this new school. He 
had charge of — it is not wise to give numbers, and was 
kept as Instructor in the Intelligence Department where 
he had much to do with the building of No Man's Land. 

His company were expert map-makers, which recalls 
the incident related by Prof. Charles Upson Clark of the 
American Academy in Rome, showing the extent of Ger- 
man spy work in our own country before the war. One 
of our officers was in Berlin and was being shown through 
the Intelligence offices. Scarcely thinking it possible, the 
American asked if his was there. It was, and he read 
the added data that he lived near Utica, N. Y., upon an 
acre of ground having two wells. Astounded, he admitted 
all except the wells, there was but one, he said. Returning 
to the States, he found the German spy right, there was 
an old well, overgrown! Lieut. Evans went to France 
with the 91st, where he will be commissioned, as all in 
charge of Intelligence work in our Army abroad are. 
Captain. 

"A fellow needs as many eyes as a fly in this scout 
business. Instead, he has as many feet as a centipede, 
every one of them cracking a twig, dislodging a stone, or 



376 THE NINETY-FIRST 

raising a dust." Yet the parties do wonders on the scout- 
ing tours, one whole company succeeding in swimming a 
river under equipment and evading patrols. They are 
taught to keep out of sight till it becomes second nature, 
and to go softly. 

In order to teach men to crawl in and out of shell 
holes, to find their way in the dark, and still to be in 
plain view of their instructors who could see the mis- 
takes, goggles of darkened glass were adopted which make 
a sunny day black night. Toward the end of the training, 
long night reconnaissances were made, and their errors 
freely discussed afterward. This is where the foreign 
officers are especially valuable, forestalling the blunders 
which cost them so much in the early days of the war, and 
bringing their dear-bought experience to bear. 

Scouts must be strong of body and wit. Men have 
"hiked" and jumped and the rest of it before being ad- 
mitted to this school, even then athletes they must be. 
They see how going hand over hand up a rope twenty 
feet in two seconds counts, not only in your life, but in 
the lives of your regiment for which you advance into 
and beyond the outposts of the enemy at night, so that 
this Intelligence practice is no game, even if a man is 
"dead" when discovered and gone when captured, quite 
as when we played I-spy, only we called it Hi-spy in the 
days of long ago. 

Sniping, snipping, or clipping, speaks for itself. It is 
something in which Americans have always excelled. It 
is the exposed, detached, perilous picking off of those who 
like themselves are doing especial duty. Shooting com- 
pares — Positive Marksman, Comparative Rifleman, Super- 
lative Sniper. Lieut. Shaw and Sergt. C. F. Nicholos of a 
Hampshire regiment are the Sniping Officers. 

If you know the way, you may wiggle along in and out 
and find yourself in an observation dugout which is bur- 
rowed below the hilltop and has long narrow slits of eyes 
peering out from its face at the side of the hill. Dun 
colored mosquito netting fringes the wooden eyelids, and 
bushes and grass veil it. All about this listening post is 
so artistically camouflaged by the intelligence men that 



CAMP LEWIS 377 

even after one has been there and gone but a little distance 
it is difficult to find the place. "We had it too green at 
first," said Maj. Powell "We noticed the surroundings 
were browner. It is rather a good job." 

This observation dugout is thirteen feet square and 
shellproof, being covered with twenty-one feet of logs and 
earth, the former laid first one way then the other. Within 
are telescopes for watching everything and everybody, 
near and far, and intelligence men are always the brain 
behind those eyes. In these and many other ways do they 
see and hear and listen. 

But into modern war, through the savagery of the 
Huns, has come necessity for smell, a neglected sense, the 
very name of which is somehow discredited. It is insult- 
ing to savages to couple them with Huns, though — 

"The savage mind was narrow. 

That's hoiv it came to pass 
Men used a poisoned arTow 

Instead of poisoned gas." 

Most men seem largely deficient in the sense of smell, 
which is being cultivated as first protection against this 
cowardly method of killing. In the early days of the war 
the Allies were unprepared for it. Maj. Powell said he 
should never forget seeing three-hundred writhing in long 
torture, slowly dying like fish, gasping. This was after 
the first use of devils' breath at Ypres in April, 1915, but 
soon masks were invented, and now it is unwatchfulness 
or carelessness in adjusting masks that is chargeable for 
casualties. Up here in No Man's Land are the gas trenches 
where not only the Intelligence workers, but every man 
in Camp Lewis from its Commandant down, aye and the 
women, nurses, who are to go overseas, practice with gas 
masks. They make men look like a combination of deep 
sea diver, nightmare bird of prey, and grotesque demon, 
and the Germans, for all time to come, have fastened 
that hideous mask to their own faces. A strong clip 
clamps the nostrils so that it is impossible to breathe 



378 THE NINETY-FIRST 

through them, a large flexible tube connected to a canister 
filled with chemicals goes to the mouth. This secret 
compound robs the air of its poison. A mask of rubber- 
ized cotton, made to conform closely to various types of 
face, covers the head to the ears, and two broad elastic 
bands hold it. Glass or celluloid covers the eyes and a 
valve of rubber discharges the breath. The whole folds 
compactly, for the hose is "accordion-plaited", and slips 
into a small knapsack of canvas which is constantly worn, 
at the hip except when "at alert" when it hangs upon 
the chest. 

Visitors to Camp Lewis often watch groups of men, 
under charge of a Sergeant, learning to adjust masks 
rapidly. Like everything else there, it is taught with 
military precision, just so many motions and in prescribed 
order. 

"Gas!" calls the sergeant. Soldiers unbutton the flap 
of the knapsack, remove mask, adjust rubber mouthpiece, 
clip the nose clamps, toss head to one side, slip on the 
elastic bands, while he counts. "Six," said one to begin- 
ners. "You fellows would have a good lungful of gas by 
six. The last lot did it in four at the start." They re- 
duced it, of course. When awkardness means death, and 
skill safety, a class is bound to be attentive. 

These masks have been improved from time to time 
and made to last longer, for the chemicals must be changed. 
Five hours is about the limit of use, but of course gas 
attacks never last that long. A soldier carries two of 
these canisters at the Front. Every mask is fltted to its 
owner and worn, later, in a gas chamber to be sure it 
fits perfectly and does not leak. After much drilling to 
make sure of quick adjustment, men are taken to the 
trenches and accustomed to the presence of gas. The 
United States has kept ahead of the Germans from the 
first and our Country's gas masks are the best, in fact 
they afford perfect protection. So mothers, don't worry. 
As Son himself admits, it is "up to" him to be safe. 

A drill at the trenches is interesting and reassuring. 
If you look at the dugout cut you will see the doorway 



CAMP LEWIS 379 

which leads within. To it are hung heavy double blankets. 
Any housekeeper will know no gas can penetrate them. 
Men are constantly on the watch for the yellowish green 
and greenish brown gas which, being heavier than air, 
creeps like the serpent-thing it is, along the ground. We 
gain what we use, so soldiers are becoming quick to smell 
the evil thing, sweetish, stifling, sickening. The moment 
it is detected every man raises his voice in one word, 
Gas, Gas! and so yelling, adjusts his mask and rushes to 
the noise-makers for a general alarm. At Camp Lewis 
there are large iron triangles with striker attached hung 
by the blankets, which are to be instantly dropped. The 
din occasioned by these triangles would alarm Dahomey, 
if that synonym for savagery, had taken to gassing. In 
some trenches ratchets are wound, large rattles shaken, 
horns blown. In fact part of the training in the gas 
school is to contrive alarms with anything at hand, and 
men are encouraged to ingenuity. 

Capt. Pontius of the Medical Department was conduct- 
ing drill in the gas-trenches — gas work has since been 
transferred to the Engineers. He explained its workings 
and the absolute protection of the respirator. Then car- 
boys were partly uncocked and chlorine gas was seen and 
smelled, the blankets were dropped, triangles pounded, 
masks adjusted. If I had doubted the efficacy of the 
blanket dugout portieres, the sickening odor of the suit 
worn there, proved it for days after. 

When the gas had settled to the bottom of the trench, 
a soldier at each end began beating it out, each advancing 
toward the center. They used short-handled "flappers," 
large fan-shaped pieces of stout canvas which were struck 
flat upon the ground, dissipating the gas. This is done 
till no odor can be detected. 

After other preparation, soldiers drill and march at 
double-quick wearing the clumsy head gear, and, at the 
last, enter gas-filled dugouts without fear, knowing the 
respirators are safe. 

If all Home Folks could visit Camp Lewis, see for 
themselves the training and precautions against gas, and 



380 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



remember that in Washington, D. C, seventeen expert 
chemists directed by the greatest in this country are work- 
ing to nullify all such inventions, and, the pity of it, to 
invent more terrible for our own army, they would real- 
ize that German gas is less to be feared than even Ger- 
man U-boat. At first Hun preparedness was fitted against 
Un-preparedness, the most hampering of which was per- 




LIEUT. F. H. PUGH 



sistent faith in the human-ness of the Prussian; but as 
soon as we saw his hoof and horns, we prepared to fight 
the Devil like the Devil. Why, even the French and 
British who had fought the Prussians, did not believe a 
German prisoner who told them that the Huns had gas 
cylinders ready to turn upon Ypres. Gas was forbidden 
by the Hague Treaty. Strange they should have already 



CAMP LEWIS 381 

forgotten that to the Teutons a treaty was but "a scrap 
of paper." So thousands died, and a captured cylinder 
told how and that the gas was chlorine. 

The British sent to us men of experience in the new 
horror as instructors, Lieut. F. H. Pugh of their Army 
Service Corps and Sergt. B. Campbell of the Connaught 
Rangers. Like the others, Lieut. Pugh fought at Looz and 
other battles, and the rest of the detail speaks warmly 
of his life at Camp Lewis. ''Such fine fellows, they have 
treated us like brothers. How I hope we shall fight side 
by side." Probably they were treated as brothers because 
they were like them. Such fine, clean, brave young fellows, 
those Britishers ! 

Lieut. W. R. Warrell, of the British Military Mission, 
came to Camp Lewis as bayonet instructor, after recovery 
from the then new "mustard gas" used first by the Ger- 
mans in July, 1917. When the bombs began to fall, he 
said, the men donned their respirators not knowing the 
eflfect of mustard gas, which is to burn deep wherever there 
is the slightest moisture, so that the mouth and eyes are 
always afi'ected, and other parts of the body that are per- 
spiring. It was a fortnight before he could see, and weeks 
before speech returned, of course the burns were very 
painful and recovery slow. Injuries from this gas are 
now obviated by bathing men exposed to it with a 
solution which prevents burns, and which is kept close 
at hand. Lieut. Warrell fought at Verdun and the Marne, 
how well, the Victoria Cross attests. Those Canadians 
are as bad as the Scotch at Waterloo, of whom it was 
said it was not enough to kill them, they must be pushed 
over. Sergt. L. F. Morris, Canadian Infantry, is with him, 
instructing, both being experts with the bayonet. 

This big-boy nation of ours is surely entitled to credit 
for one thing not often to be found in the young, especially 
in the growing and precocious young, who are sadly apt 
to be cocksure and generally unteachable at that period. 
We have asked to be instructed by those more experienced 
in war than we and have welcomed their Military Missions 
to our cantonments. All the oflScers, British and French, 



382 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAMP LEWIS 383 

are loud in praise not only of the eagerness and aptitude, 
the skill so readily acquired by our army of civilians, but 
of the temper of our regulars and spirit of their officers, 
welcoming foreigners and gratefully accepting their in- 
struction not only in new forms of warfare, but in new 
methods of old in which Americans had earlier distin- 
guished themselves. There is the bayonet, for instance. 
Our army had used it as well as others, though it was a 
weapon which went against the National grain until the 
Germans used it to dispatch our wounded, then it be- 
hooved us to whet both weapon and appetite. Bayonets 
had changed little since 1670 when they were simply 
knives bound to muskets at Bayonne, France, except that 
they were clipped into sockets designed for them upon 
rifles; but our Ordnance Department is now furnishing 
bayonets which are un-safety razors — for Huns — and 
Lieut. Warrell and Sergt. Morris are furnishing experience. 
Camouflage is French for a practice old as arms, mili- 
tary disguise, deception. Remember how the coward 
Macbeth was emboldened by the Witches' prediction : 

Macbeth shall never vanquished be, until 
Great Biiniam ivood to high Dunsinane hill 
Shall come against him. 

And then the unknowing fulfilment, and the opening 
sentence which applies today: 

Mai. Cousins, I hope the days are near at hayid that 
chambers ivill be safe. 

Ment. We doubt it nothing. 

Siw. What wood is this before us? 

Ment. The wood of Birnam. 

Mai. Let every soldier hew him doiv7i a bough, 

And bear't before him, thereby shall ive shadow 

The numbers of our host, and make discovery 

Err in report of us." 

This camouflage was successful in Scotland just nine- 
hundred-seventeen years before Lieut. Shaw taught the 
system to the 91st Division, and conducted a demonstration 



384 THE NINETY-FIRST 

of its workings upon the No Man's Land of the 182nd In- 
fantry. The Commandant, Staff, and most of the officers 
at camp attended. The camouflage department should be 
especially effective at this cantonment where are scores 
of men who have been expert workers along this very 
line for the leading moving picture studios and settlements, 
as well as scene painters and ranch men. 

Speaking of demonstrations, "Over the Top" conducted 
by the foreign officers when Gen. Helmick inspected Camp 
Lewis the middle of February, showed their training along 
all lines. Great shells shrieked over a battleground de- 
signed and dug just as it would be overseas. Then the 
machine guns, and the soldiers rushed forward, dropping 
into shell holes, crawling, firing, throwing hand grenades, 
and took the Boche trenches. Capt. J. C. Champion, 256th 
Infantry, head of the French as Capt. Mawdsley of the 
English detail, instructor in bombs and grenades, assisted 
by Sergt. Bonnett, was in charge of the advance, and after 
the battle, while still on the ground, pointed out the mis- 
takes made, the principal one being imprudence in expos- 
ing themselves to fire. 

"Remember, your being killed or wounded is one man 
less on your Country's side with which to win the 
fight." Men can be taught caution with good grace 
from officers like Champion, of bravery equal to his 
name. He wears the War Cross, or rather he does not, 
not even the ribbon which indicates it, except on High 
Days and Holidays, and carries his modesty to the point 
of boredom. All the French detail have been decorated 
which, in the French army, means courage indeed, when 
it distinguishes them among comrades all brave. That 
is more than can be said of the German Iron Cross, often 
bestowed for some especially dastardly deed. 

One of these French with us was of a volunteer party 
of twelve who penetrated the enemy's line at night, cutting 
wires to obtain needed information. All but he were killed. 
A second volunteer party met the same fate, he only return- 
ing. Upon his urging permission to make a third attempt, 
he was forbidden. This was not learned from him, but 



CAMP LEWIS 



385 







CAPT. CHAMPION 



upon someone's referring to it he shrugged his shoulders 
in true French style and remarked, "I should not have had 
the Cross, but they who died." He was wrong. They 
won the crown, for him only the Cross. 

Capt. Champion, like all the French detail, speaks 
perfect English. They are University men, some from 
English U's as well as French. The Captain spoke for the 
benefit of the Belgian Babies fund at a local hotel, and 
Sergt. Mirat illustrated the talk with cartoons which were 
auctioned for the cause. Mirat came to Camp Lewis the 
first week in November and is probably the best known 
of the detail for the reason that he has given both enter- 
taining and instructive talks to all Companies, sometimes 

§ 26 



386 THE NINETY-FIRST 

illustrating them with wonderful lantern slides, some- 
times with his own sketches. He has also published two 
small volumes of poems since war began. All the French 
officers fought in the earlier fierce battles, like Mirat, the 
Somme, the Marne, Verdun. Another French sergeant, 
Bonnell, instructor in bombing, is a good speaker who 
fought for three years before being detailed to Camp 
Lewis. 



a 



CAMP LEWIS 387 



CHAPTER XXL 

ATHLETICS — COOK, DIRECTOR — WORLD-CHAMPION HURDLER 

SIMPSON WORLD-CHAMPION WRESTLER IRELAND — 

WORLD-CHAMPION BOXER RITCHIE — BASEBALL AND CAPTS. 
WATTELET AND SCOTT — SCORES OF BASEBALL PROFESSION- 
ALS FOOTBALL AND LIEUTS. STANTON AND MALLUM — 

SOCCER AND LIEUT. QUIMBY — BASKETBALL — SWIMMING, 
CHAMPION CUNNHA AND AWAI — ARENA AND MEET — 
BUTTE BUILDING AND A. J. DAVIS. 

Never in the world's history has athletics played so 
great a part in war as today. Formerly, darkness brought 
rest and sleep for both sides ; now men fight and work 
night and day, often for more than forty-eight hours at 
a stretch. Every muscle must be tough, every ounce of 
flesh hard. Knowledge of perfect physical condition breeds 
confidence, which is the very heart of valor in action, and 
endurance, which is the test of it. A third phase of its 
power is the assistance it gives in recovery from wounds. 
All that, and more, at the Front: in camp, athletics is the 
prime mixer, the quickest method of developing Company 
spirit, bringing ofi&cers and men together by means in no 
way derogatory to discipline, but good in its effects in a 
democratic army like ours. This was very soon demon- 
strated at Camp Lewis and answered the objectors, of 
which athletics, like all special activities, enjoyed its share. 

The Ninety-First could not have been better satisfied 
if its hundreds of professional and amateur athletics stars 
had been allowed their pick for Division Director, and 
been able to agree upon the man, instead of having Capt. 
Trevanion G. Cook appointed to that position by the War 
Department, through the Fosdick War Activities Com- 



CAMP LEWIS 389 

mittee. Some man may have felt the Division could have 
fared better, but he has not yet been heard from, so does 
not figure in the First's of this book, 

Capt. Cook has had twenty-seven years' experience as 
Director of Athletics, ten of them being in the New York 
State School for the Deaf and Dumb, New York City. 
He came West, and was director in Spokane for eight 
years, spent two at Wallace, Idaho, and the last year before 
coming to Camp Lewis at Butte, so that he knows this 
Northwest and its men, and many know him. Of them, 
he is a type; a sportsman, an athlete, a gentleman, just 
the one to give the right impress to the important board 
he heads. He has not only supervised the entire Division 
athletics, but has arranged and directed several Meets 
which have been remarkable not only in their numbers of 
entries and feats, but in demonstrating the value to mili- 
tary acquirements of athletics co-ordination. Capt. Cook 
had expected to accompany the 91st Division to France, 
but he had done his work too well to be needed there, as 
he is for succeeding Divisions at Camp Lewis, so he 
remains. 

Edgar H. Kienholz, Assistant Camp Athletics Director, 
is another find, a graduate of the State College at Pullman, 
Washington, where he took a Bachelor's Degree in Agri- 
culture, 1913, a Master's, in 1915. While awaiting the 
B. A. and the M. A., however, he affixed the remainder 
of the alphabet, won at football, basketball, baseball and 
track, at his college. It is said he has more letters than 
any other college man. Wonder how he found time to 
learn anything about agriculture, let alone Master it? 
The year after his graduation, he directed and coached 
athletics at Yakima High School. Then he became in- 
structor of Agriculture, Elementary Science Department, 
also assistant Coach, in the state College of Washington, 
remaining two years. During 1916-7, he was Director 
and Coach at Polytechnic High School, Long Beach, 
California. 

Then there is Lieut. Robert Simpson, who was gradu- 
ated from the University of Missouri last Fall, took a com- 



390 THE NINETY-FIRST 

mission at Fort Sheridan, and at Camp Lewis is Coach of 
Track Athletics. These facts are ordinary, but what is 
extra-ordinary is that Simpson was member of a team 
sent to the Olympic Games, and that he holds the World's 
Record for both High and Low Hurdles, the former being 
fourteen and three-fifths seconds, 120 yard, and the latter 
in 220 yards. Is that good enough for you, Ninety-First? 
Lieut. Simpson is attached to the 44th Infantry. 

Yes, for a beginning that will do, but this First Divis- 
ion must have only First's. Lloyd Erwin Ireland was born 
in Walla Walla, Washington, and attended Columbia Col- 
lege at Milton, Oregon. Like Hercules, he must have begun 
wrestling in the cradle, for he was credited with it in 
1905, and won the World's Featherweight Championship 
in 1913. Two years afterward he was physical director 
of Olympia's Young Men's Christian Association. He 
was appointed Wrestling Instructor at Camp Lewis in 
November, 1918. 

Ireland should rise to fame in the army, as he has 
served at sea on a revenue cutter and on land as a 
National Guardsman, while his second cousin, Maj. Gen. 
Leonard Wood holds rank a goal's distance from the little 
corporal — not meaning Napoleon though he, too was of 
Artillery. Ireland is regimental postmaster of the 346th 
Field Artillery. He has been "Kid Irish" as long as he 
cares to be, and he is twenty-five, anyway. If he does 
weigh less than 125 pounds, he is as strong as the Her- 
cules he emulated, for he can lift ten times his own weight. 
Several times at camp smokers he has lifted five men, 
easily, and once he was foolish enough to carry the same 
number of men a city block, but that was several years ago. 

In all, Ireland entered 448 wrestling bouts, engaging 
men from 115 to 248 pounds in weight, and lost but nine- 
teen contests. He won the championship of the world in 
1913 from Grimms, who had worn only a fortnight the 
belt which he had taken from Keegan, who had held it 
for years. And Corporal Ireland is not only a world's 
champion wrestler and a strong man, but an expert jui- 
jitsu-ist, if that is what it is called. No wonder the 



CAMP LEWIS 391 

wrestlers of Camp Lewis are legion and notable, with such 
an instructor. 

"Kid Irish" came before about 3000 soldiers that 
packed the Y. M. C. A. Auditorium and defended his title 
against the challenge of Sergeant Guy "Alaska" Stegner, 
at a smoker given by the 316th Engineers and the 346th 
Field Artillery; and having won the match, he dropped 
name and title upon the mat, and left the hall Corporal 
Ireland, U. S. N. A. who is training thousands of men 
instead of one, and the thousands-and-one are putting 
their strength into a bout worth while. 

In this group we will find a third World Champion, 
"Willie Ritchie," or, as his card in the great filing case 
of the Depot Brigade has it, Gerhardt Steffens, San Fran- 
cisco, first of the new California draft to appear at the 
receiving station. Soon after war was declared, he had 
enlisted in the Signal Corps Reserve from which he was 
discharged to accept the position of Boxing Instructor at 
Camp Lewis, where, daily, he teaches classes composed of 
472 assistant boxing instructors, who in turn carry down 
the work to men in groups of from forty to sixty, the 
result being that hundreds of Camp Lewis boxers are al- 
ready a credit to any ring, and that the whole Division 
is rapidly gaining great proficiency. Yes, and size, men 
are actually growing like boys! 

Ritchie grows talkative when he insists that no other 
form of sport, not only, but of drill, can so strengthen 
men for war, and teach them what to do with that strength. 
Boxing, he says, employs the very muscles used in bayonet- 
ing and teaches a man to take blows as well as to give 
them, so that when you put a gun and bayonet into his 
hands he feels the extra confidence of a weapon harder 
than his fists. It is for these reasons that the government 
has made attendance compulsory at instruction in boxing 
both for soldiers and sailors. For, as Ritchie says, it is 
not the Captain that will bring a man safely out of a 
battle, if he comes back, but his own ability to fight, with 
every inch of muscle and atom of sense, and to keep his 
eye on his adversary. 



392 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAMP LEWIS 393 

Ritchie will not talk of himself, he is not in the least 
like most professionals in that, though, to be sure I never 
before talked to one noted in his line. He has been ten 
years before his public and was Lightweight Champion 
of the world. He is too heavy for that class now, but he 
has lost none of his strength to the usual conqueror of 
fighters, for he has never drunk a drop, does not even 
smoke, is a good business man, property owner, and home- 
lover, with "one strong appetite — for ice cream," laughs 
one of his admirers. As a man he is much liked, and the 
Division was greatly disappointed to learn that, because 
his hearing is slightly defective, he will not go with them 
to France. However, as in Capt. Cook's case, what the 
Ninety-First loses. Camp Lewis gains, and his many 
trophies remain here. One, an immense Loving Cup, v\'as 
presented last May when he boxed for a benefit, for Ritchie 
will use his skill for nothing but the army and the Red 
Cross while war lasts. This great Loving Cup is like the 
Widow's Cruse, always empty, but always able to pour 
forth — money, not oil. 

This connection between boxing and bayoneting makes 
it invaluable, as is shown in moving pictures prepared by 
the Commission on Training Camp Activities and distri- 
buted to camps. One of the leaders is, "Bayoneting is 
boxing with a gun in your hands." Ritchie also received a 
gift of four films from Miles' Brothers of San Francisco, 
showing celebrated bouts, instructive to the men. Ritchie 
himself took instruction in bayoneting, of Lieutenants 
Hurlburt and Noble. 

The Boxing Tournament held the first week in June 
might be described as the Graduating Exercises of Super- 
intendent Ritchie's Camp Lewis School. It was held in 
the sports arena, with over 150 entries, men who qualifie'i 
at the elimination bouts held for several days previously. 
For six evenings the arena was crowded, and it seats 
20,000. It was said to be the superior of anything ever 
before staged, and, the men think, can never be excelled. 
Medals were awarded individuals, and handsome silver 
regimental trophies presented the last night, by Capt. 



394 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Worsham, whose open-air voice rivals that of Gen. Fun- 
ston's father who was seldom called anything but Fog- 
horn Funston. Capt. Worsham announced these events, 
and the Remount's, later. 

This Divisional Ring Tournament reflected great credit 
upon Capt. Cook and Ritchie. Washington men in the 
361st Infantry were the stars of the firmament. I am 
warned that this book will not be worth the paper if 
the winners' names are not published, so here they are : 

CLASS A, PROFESSIONALS 
G. W. Thompson San Diego, CaL, 24th company, 166th depot 
brigade. 

"Pickles" Martin, Los Angeles, Cal., Battery A, 347th F. A. 
Danny O'Brien, Salt Lake City, Utah, Company E, 361st infantry. 
Joe "Butch" Simonich, Butte, Mont., Company A, 361st infantry. 
Dick Wells, Seymour, Ind., Company A, 361st infantry. 
Leo Cross, San Francisco, Cal., Company F, 364th Infantry. 
Bob Sommerville Los Angeles, Cal., Company F, 364th infantry. 

CLASS B, AMATEURS 
Charles Sepulveda, Los Angeles, Cal., Company A, 364th infantry. 
M. M. Robertson, Salmas, Cal., Company G, 361st infantry. 
Charles Feretti, San Francisco, Cal., Company G, 316th ammuni- 
tion train. 

George Davis, Hoquiam, Wash., 363d ambulance company, 
William Thompson, San Francisco, Cal., Company L, 363d infantry. 
H. L. Peterson Fairview, Utah, Company A, 361st infantry. 
Oscar "Kid" Koch, Mexico, Company C, 316th engineer trains. 

Baseball might be called the characteristic American 
sport. Perhaps it is because I know more about it than 
any other, having lived in Detroit when the great games 
between its teams and Chicago's were crises in our affairs, 
but really it seems that more kinds of military training 
can be gained by baseball than by any other. However, 
what it is starred for, is training in throwing hand gren- 
ades, in which four motions are requisite, one showing 
in this cut. Don't know what it is, officially, but it would 
seem to be "Get out of your own way." A hand grenade 
is about five inches long and explodes in that many seconds 
after it is set, so you don't want to begin thinking "the 
thoughts of youth which are long, long thoughts" when it 
is ready for action. Our "lemons" are an improvement 
on the Allies' since they will not explode until a clip is 
pressed down, so are safely carried. These "lemons," by 
the way, are so shaped and of ribbed steel. 



CAMP LEWIS 



395 



The Divisional Coach is a professional player, owner 
and manager of the Victoria Northwest Baseball Team, 
Capt. L. A, Wattelet of the 364th Infantry. He and Capt. 
Cook and Capt. Scott are the commission for Camp Lewis 
League games of twenty teams divided into National and 
American, which play upon fourteen out of the forty 
cantonment diamonds. 

I notice that you betrayed no excitement over mention 
of Capt. Scott. It's a common name, how were you to 
guess it was "Death Valley Jim" Scott, pitcher for eight 




THROWING HAND GRENADES 



years for the Champion Chicago White Sox! Think of 
messing with him, having him remark to you, perso7ially, 
that it was muddy, or that Camp Lewis diamonds are the 
stones. 

They say he was as excited over the opening of 
these cantonment games as he ever was over the first day 
of the Big League. "Why shouldn't I be," he queries, 
"We're in the biggest game of our lives right now, and 
when we strike France we shall feel as if we had never 
played in anything but bush team before." Captain Scott's 
two-hundred dollars a month, less board and uniform, 
would have been too small for Pitcher Scott to see, but 
what is money anyway when you can fight and, on the 
side, play ball and manage an Officers Training Camp 
team which, undefeated, is out for more scalps? 



396 THE NINETY-FIRST 

There are scores of lesser lights: Guisto, first base 
with Cleveland Americans, Myers same in Boston Nationals 
Kingman, pitcher, and Mullen, infielder New York Ameri- 
cans, Mails, Brooklyn, and Smutz and Oldham, pitcher for 
the Detroit Tigers, playing for thirty dollars a month, 
and trying to out-do one another? 

Lieut. J. E. Widmann, 346th Machine Gun Battalion, is 
known all over the Southwest as player and manager. He 
was in the Philippines for three years when Gen. Pershing 
was Captain there. Widmann started in the Islands 
as a private, becoming post commissary-sergeant. After 
the Spanish American war he played baseball everywhere, 
when this began, he took a commission at the Presidio and 
then went to the Fort Sill musketry school. Now he 
divides his attention between machine guns and baseball. 

From the baseball teams of almost every company in 
camp were picked, after trial games, the Divisional Na- 
tionals and Americans which play in the largest Field 
upon all the cantonments. About ten first-class pitchers 
contested for the honor of playing. These opposing nines 
play every Wednesday, beginning the middle of May. The 
qualifying teams were, Americans 361st and 364th In- 
fantry, 346th F. A., 316th Engineers, 316th Supply Tr., 
Remount, Military Police, 44th Infantry, Y. Q. M. C, 
Division Headquarters; and Natioyials : Infantry, 362nd, 
363rd; 347th and 348th F. A., Machine Gun Bn., 316th 
Am. Tr., 316th San Tr., 316th Sig. Corps, Depot Brigade 
and Ordnance Department. 



According to a published list here are more of the Division play- 
ers: Jo Connolly, 363rd Infantry, former Tacoma Tiger, Mclvor, 
Reardon, 363rd C; La Marra and Holloway, D. B. utility; 316th eng., 
p., Northwestern; Mark Higby, 362nd ambulance Co., p., formerly 
of the Coast league; Charles Schmutz, 362nd Amb. Co., p., majors 
Northwestern; Howard Mundorff, M. P., outfielder. Coast league; 
Hap Myers, 362d field sig. bn., lb, Boston Braves; Harrington, O. 
T. C, c, Olympic club, San Francisco; Sergt. Ten Million, 361st 
inf. outfielder, Seattle club; M. H. Shriver, O. T. C, infielder, U. 
of C. ; ex of Cincinnati and Richmond clubs; Roy Sharp, O. T. C. 
infielder, U. of C; "Midget" McKay, 0. T. C, infielder, U. of N. D. ; 
Howell Romney, O. T. C, outfielder; Carl King, M. P., c; Tom 
Hickey, 363d inf., p.; Ed. Klein, 363d p.; Hal Chase, 347th F. A., p.; 
fed Allen, 347 F. A., p. 



CAMP LEWIS 



397 




398 THE NINETY-FIRST 

It is said that cricket, tennis and golf in England are, 
at least for the war, totally neglected, since they need 
grounds, and everybody is wild over American baseball 
for which 2000 teams are to be equipped from New York. 

Probably the least exercised portion of the ordinary 
man's body is his ankles, even women, by reason of "turn- 
ing" their ankles over their silly high heels, exert them 
more. Football, is therefore of the greatest importance 
in making soldiers sure-footed, a life-saving trait on the 
shell-torn battlefields of France. When the mother of 
Achilles dipped her boy in the dread Styx, she held him 
by the heel, you remember, so that his foot only was 
vulnerable. Columbia is striving to safeguard her boys 
where Thetis failed, by football. If Thetis had not been 
a sea-goddess, she would have thought of that, for football 
was played in Homer's time. The Greeks played a game 
very similar to Rugby, and when Augustus succeeded 
Julius Caesar, he appointed a committee to revise football 
rules. 

As Sir Walter Scott said: 

Then strip, lads, and to it, tho sharp be the iveather. 
And if perchance you should happen to fall, 
There are worse things in life than a tumble on heather, 
And life is itself but a game of foot ball. 

Eskimos are experts at it, using a ball of seal leather 
stuffed with reindeer hair, light and strong. They are 
wonderful kickers, those Eskimos, too. 

Foot ball's representative and coach upon the Athletics 
Divisional Council is Lieut. W. L. Stanton of the 316th 
Supply Train, who was Football Coach at Occidental Col- 
lege, California. Lieut. Mallum, treasurer of Camp Lewis 
Athletic Organization, has been prominent in the game 
since the big Stadium game. But our American Football, 
or its English cousin, Rugby, is neither so valuable to sol- 
diers as its Scotch cousin Soccer, which, with the twist 
which the Scotch tongue gives to words, straightened, 
means association football, because rules so formulated, 
forbid the holding or carrying of the ball, only foot work 



CAMP LEWIS 



399 




400 THE NINETY-FIRST 

being allowable in Soccer. For this reason it is especially 
favored by Brig. Gen. Foltz. It is the principal sport of the 
French army. Lieut. Hubin of the Belgian army has 
issued a challenge to ours for Soccer games, and, judging 
from the record of the Ninety-First's squad, Americans 
are ready. 

And if Soccer is not a Yankee game, it is 
pronounced as if it were. Coached by Lieut. Quimby of 
the 361st Infantry — he wearing the fur collar — these boys 
won the Championship of the Northwest. The Lieutenant 
is a Stanford University man, Division Soccer Coach, and 
his poem upon The Platform Creiv proves him as virile 
a writer as sportsman. 

A ball is the oldest toy in the world. Doubtless Adam 
and Eve played it with an apple, Cain and Abel kicked a 
melon for football, or struck an orange with the palm of 
their hand for a tennis racket. In fact as late as King 
Arthur, tennis was called paume because so struck. In 
France, from the king down, while Columbus was busy 
proving the world a ball hurled by Jupiter, everybody 
played tennis, with a glove as buffer. In fact, Romulus 
and Remus, Pyramis and Thisbe, David and Johnathan, 
— all the rest of them, played ball. 

Bayoneting, Boxing, Baseball, Basketball, all are Busy 
B's, especially Basketball, whose Division Team, from the 
middle of February till the end of March, 1918, was de- 
feated but once, and brought back to the Ninety-First an- 
other Championship of the Northwest. It hardly seems fair 
to crow, however, when you reflect that Camp Lewis teams, 
in any sport, are the pick of the best players in the entire 
Northwest, pitted against a local team, however good. Take 
this Basketball squad: Sergt. Keinholz of the Council, 
Lieut. Craig of University of Wyoming, Lieut. Hjelte, 
University of California, Sharp of same, Staatz, of Wash- 
ington, Berndt, Santa Clara College, California, Hayer, 
Wallace High School, Van Pelt University of Utah, Hal- 
verson of Ripon, Lieut. Rice a Montanan and Wilson, 
another Californian. All these had been stars in their 
college galaxies. 



CAMP LEWIS 401 

Just before the Division went over, tennis courts were 
laid out in several parts of the cantonment and play had 
begun — suppose that is especially valuable for arm-reach 
and leaping. 

Swimming, too, began to take its important place 
among sports which are so useful as hardly to be ranked 
among sports. Now, a government order makes it 
obligatory upon all soldiers to learn to swim. As usual. 
Camp Lewis was to the fore with a great beautiful lake, 
named a-purpose, American, and a teacher, George Cunnha, 
who couldn't wear all his medals or they would sink him. 
He is another World's Champion, Speed-swimmer, and has 
several times out-classed Duke Kahamamoku, who as you 
might suspect, is an Hawaiian, which is as to say, swim- 
mer. I don't suppose any native Hawaiian was ever 
drowned since the sea swept his front yard and the surf 
beat at his door. 

Just spell the heart out of his beloved island and you 
will have the very name of another great swimmer of the 
Ninety-First, Awai, George Awai, graduate of a Honolulu 
High School and of Kamehameha Manual. Since his coun- 
trymen speak of his swimming, he should so be noted, 
but he is beside, an all-around athlete — and in an office at 
Divisional Headquarters. Awai sings, and plays several 
instruments beside the typewriter. 

Was there anything or anybody left out of your 
athletics, Ninety-First? To be certain of the No-s, a co- 
ordinating committee was formed in February to organize 
so that there should be no overlapping or interfering, yet 
all should be covered. Capt. Cook was chairman, Capt. 
Welty came over from Headquarters, and representatives 
of the Y. M's the K. C.'s the Jewish Welfare, all attended. 

The fine Division Athletics Field, one of the largest in 
the country and brilliantly lighted, was finished for Camp 
Lewis' First Division. The April Military Tournament 
there was beyond anything ever before attempted. Capt. 
Cook must have been a proud man as he saw the time and 
manner in which this program, a Bulletin from Division 
Headquarters, was carried out without a failure. The re- 

§ 27 



402 THE NINETY-FIRST 

suits have been detailed elsewhere in relating regimental 
honors, but you men who took part before the thousands 
of enthusiastic onlookers, including Gen. Greene and his 
Staff, would like it reprinted, would you not? 

1. Hand grenade — 

(a) Distance, three trails, built-up trench. 

(b) Accuracy, five trails, team of eight men. 

2. Rescue race, two-men team, limit three teams to a unit — 
Rescue men to run 50 yards to wounded men, lift them on their 
shoulders without any assistance by the wounded men, and carry 
them back to the start; wounded men to weigh 150 pounds each. 

3. Bayonet combat — Equipment: Wooden rifle, mask, plastron 
and glove; team of 10 men from each regiment; rules of the divisional 
infantry school of arms to govern combat. 

4. Wall scaling — 50 yards, 25 yards to the wall, over the wall, 
and 25 yards to the finish; the wall to be 10 feet high and 12 inches 
wide; squads must be formed and reported at the finish; hats must 
be worn throughout. 

5. Relay litter race, 200 yards — Teams of eight men; eight 
teams; 50 yards. 

6. Competitive squad drill — Under the general rules for such 
events. 

7. Running trench jump — Carrying rifles and jumping a six- 
foot trench. 

8. Bugle Competition — The regulation bugle to be used. 

9. 100 yards squad relay race, teams of eight men each — each 
man running 220 yards, field shoes. 

Some sports cannot be pursued to advantage in Winter, 
though then recruits need them most, so that the gift of 
Andrew J. Davis is one that none but themselves can 
fully appreciate. The size of the building, largest of its 
sort in the world, its cost in money, its equipments, are 
apparent to everybody; but the understanding, the know- 
ledge of just how best to accomplish good to so many, 
many thousands of our boys, were born in the heart of the 
man, not his pocket. He turned its design over to the 
supervision of one who would know just what was needed 
and wanted, Capt. Trevanion Cook, whose experience is 
one of the "built-in" features. Then Mr. Davis asked 
Capt. Cook to make out a list of every sort of equipment 
which could complete a perfect sports center and submit 
it to a former Butte man, Sergt.-Maj. Harold Crary, of the 
181st Brigade, who was empowered to draw a check. It 
is not every day that an enthusiast like the Division 



CAMP LEWIS 403 

Athletics Director has an opportunity to gratify his know- 
ledge of the subject, so the pleasure he felt and Mr. Davis 
felt, is only to be exceeded by that the men felt when they 
took possession of "Butte Building" — for Mr. Davis 
absolutely refused to have his name in any way connected 
with his gift. 

"Who builds a church to God and not to fame, 
Will 7iever mark the marble with his name.'' 

He had erected that huge Recreation Hall to the Men 
of the Cantonment, not to A. J, Davis, and he would not 
even be present at a formal acceptance of the structure. 
He looked it over one day with Capt. Cook, was "delighted 
with all the Captain had done for it," then slipped back 
to Montana, where he has lived since pioneer times, leav- 
ing Butte Building, Montana Avenue, as legacy to the 
Pioneer Division of Camp Lewis, and to those who come 
after. 

In the glorious record of Athletics at Camp Lewis, 
thus endeth the First Chapter. 



404 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER XXII. 

HAIL AND FAREWELL 

Reveille and welcome! No truth in the bugle's com- 
plaint, "I can't get 'em up in the morning" that notable 
day at February's end, no hugging pillows till the third 
minute before Assembly. Every man Jack in certain 
Companies of the 362nd and the 363rd Infantry swung 
out of bed at the "I" before the "can't" could sound, for, 
after all the months of hard training, had dawned The 
Day. They rushed to chow only to feel that, somehow, the 
mess hall already looked unfamiliar. Afterward, they 
swept their narrow slice of dormitory, box gone from 
under bed, clothing from nails in the wooden partition, their 
"junk" from the shelf. It really was The Day, wasn't it? 

They looked through the windows they had vociferously 
cursed when first they came, loudly enquiring, in solo 
and chorus, why the government had gone to expense for 
glass when regulations required all windows to be wide 
open the coldest nights through. Now they wondered how 
ever they had slept in stuffy rooms. Why windows are 
made to look through, and they did it now, off to the 
rugged Top-sentry of the camp. Mount Tacoma, "some 
mountain," and, at the other end, to the sparkling water 
of American Lake, blue as the flag-field, "bully lake" ; 
looked out upon great stretches of prairie parade grounds 
between, whereon, even now, poor fellows whose own 
great day had not yet dawned were drilling: marching, 
while they would be luxuriously rolling along; digging 
trenches, throwing harmless grenades at targets, charging 
swinging dummies with bayonets, while They, from 
trenches far muddier, would "hand those lemons to the 
Boches, then rush over the top and jab them direct." 



CAMP LEWIS 405 

They gazed pityingly upon the drill bodies far and near 
on the great plain, then back into the long bare room 
which would have witnessed many a homesick vigil had 
not that same drilling rendered bodies too weary "to stand 
for any such nonsense." 

They had thought to leave the old barn without a 
regret, and as bare as they found it, yet some felt strongly, 
and many dimly, that they were not leaving it empty, 
that much of their old selves remained behind, that some- 
how They were not the same men who first entered these 
barracks months — or was it years, before? Others had 
noted it, so now did They, and, with unconscious farewell 
to their outgrown selves in the outgrown room, They 
passed slowly to the street. 

No sentiment apparent as they lounged and joked, 
awaiting the dapper young Lieutenant's "Fall in," — would 
it never come ! 

"Fall in." Instantly men became soldiers, the band 
struck up and the ranks struck out. Behind the long 
stretches of barracks, the rough and muddy street was 
crossed for the last time, California street, and these were 
California boys. Last times are sort-o sad, but this was the 
first time they had started for France. A huge motor 
was bringing stones as basis of fine paved roads for 
the next draft, and just as the band came along, dumped 
a record load directly before them, over which they 
marched full soldierly, trifles like cobblestone banks no 
longer causing comment. They bore no arms, only blanket 
rolls and shining dishes. One tapped his plate and re- 
marked, "Food wins the war, we're bears for both." 

Gloomy, sullen, unwilling? Not a word of it. The sun 
burst into a broad smile, and every son, to the number 
of thousands, beamed likewise, like a football squad and 
rooters off for a long-desired game. The band played a 
"jazz" and a tall, sineM^y fellow who had been loading 
boxes of apricots, prunes, all sorts of supplies, and who 
was bareheaded and barearmed in the wind, began to 
dance. He was grace itself as he pirouetted along the 
line of waiting men and extended his finger tips to the 



406 THE NINETY-FIRST 

smallest soldier. The latter advanced mincingly, present- 
ing a clever personation of a dainty debutante, despite 
his high-necked khaki with blanket-roll for chiffon scarf 
and aluminum dishes dangling for a chatelaine at his belt. 
But the soldiers are too much accustomed to cleverness of 
this sort to heed. You know the moving picture plants 
of Southern California all but moved and planted Camp 
Lewis. Many a pretty man, so spoiled, that when he posed 
in love scenes before the camera, he needed no second 
party, turned out to be a real man, or, more properly 
speaking, a reg'ler human. Yes, it was as good as a play 
to linger 'round with the boys ; it ivas a play : a human- 
action motion picture, in natural colors, with its "leaders" 
audible. The military band played for its "augmented 
orchestra", all as it should be, big and beautiful, when 
you consider the price. 

The bands' olive uniforms grew green with jealousy, 
"No, not with this bunch, worse luck. Gee, but I wish 
we were. Perhaps tomorrow, but they never tell us." 
One of the snare drummers, relieving his feelings by 
pestering, persisted in playing a tattoo on the sides of the 
drum ahead. The soldiers would applaud the airs in 
kind. "Where do we go from here?" 

"We go to France; you for the barracks." 

There was nothing approaching rowdyism, not an 
oath, not a jest that a boy wouldn't have his mother hear 
if she'd been there, which she wasn't, nobody's mother. 
Since the first entrainement, when the men's relatives 
made of the occasion almost a naval affair, depressing 
the soldiers themselves to the tear line, and the publicity 
of the farewell affording alien enemies an opportunity to 
blow up the train, the government refuses all information 
regarding the time, the place, or the girl. One has simply 
to happen along, and this time only five women happened 
along. 

It seems hard, but the fact is war is hard, first, 
last, and all the time. As they could afford time and 
money, home dear ones had come far to visit their soldiers, 
and men near home had lately been there. Last words 



CAMP LEWIS 407 

are better unsaid. So, Dear Ones, I have taken this picture 
for you. 

No — it is not a group picture in which you cannot 
find your Boy; see, there he stands, more natural than 
in any other you have of him, for he did not suspect I 
was drawing it. His "pleased expression" was not sheep- 
ishly attempted at anyone's suggestion ; it came from with- 
in. No need for the band to propose, "Pack all your 
troubles in your old kit hag and smile, smile, smile.'' They 
had, to a man, evidently done that packing at barracks, 
for only smiles were in evidence; they wore them every 
minute of the long wait, and they wore them away, I 
give you my word. 

Some had tiny flags thrust into their hat cords, and 
some carried larger ones. "Did a friend give you that 
to carry on?" 

"No, brought it from California when I came, and I 
mean to carry it straight into France and on into Ger- 
many" — 

"Good for you. It's a good flag to fight for, isn't it?" 

"The finest ever," and he gave it a toss — 

"And the most beautiful, why even a German acknow- 
ledged that to me many years ago; and the only progres- 
sive flag. Remember? another star rises in its sky every 
once in a while." 

"That's why I followed it first; it leads"— I liked that, 
and his voice, which was — well, different, so I inquired 
of this young Wise Man from what country he had fol- 
lowed the star? 

From Italy — "Then no wonder you are glad to go, 
for you will fight both for your Fatherland and your 
Motherland." 

I was glad that I said that, for his face shone and 
so did that of his "pal," another Italian holding a 
similar flag, who conttributed only smiles and nods to the 
conversation. There are many Italians among our troops 
from sunny California, drawn thither by promises 
whispered by the olive and orange groves, then bound to 
the soil by the vineyards' tendrils. 



408 THE NINETY-FIRST 

And Home Folks, because you were not there, do not 
think Boy left with no one to see him off. Strong friend- 
ships form in the army. There are many men of many minds 
to pick and choose from. Even if Son is queer, there's 
a queerer, sure to be. They have been in daily, close as- 
sociation, with nothing from without to interfere. Did 
not people you knew abroad ship, just those few days, 
come to stay in your heart? So there was calling over, 
"Hello Bill, you old slacker, why don't you come along?" 
this to a khaki-clad, rueful six-foot-fiver. 

"Don't you let him tease you, sonny. Just wait till 
you grow up, you'll be no slacker," yells a "runt" to the 
giant. 

New excitement, more fun ! Drive up large army 
wagons, drawn, each, by four mules, the only old-fashioned 
thing in this brand-new army and its equipment, those 
wagons and smiles, the only thing left of the old army 
life among the regulars, as an army woman reminiscently 
remarked, and added, "I just love an army mule." These 
wagons are heaped with large, round blue denim draw- 
bags, tagged with name and Company, with some democratic 
near-leather telescopes, and a few aristocratic oxfords. 

Nothing but the kit-bags will go further than Camp 
Greene. Your big boys play at grab-bag now as the sol- 
dier tosses them from one side, then the other, the crowd- 
ing men, however, keeping a respectful distance from the 
mule quartet, to be watched and avoided as alien enemies. 
No one loves a mule. What's that? Oh yes, yes, notably 
truthful; just an idiosyncrasy. 

Eiitrain! Till that order some had feared they "really 
might not get to go," they had packed and hiked before, 
only to be returned to barracks. Two lines of men ap- 
proached along two coaches, coming together at the rear 
step of one, the forward step of the next car. Each man 
tossed up his bag which was caught and handed into the 
coach. The soldier then clutched the irons and swung 
himself easily aboard, turning to catch the baggage of 
the man behind. Tracks were high, the step had no wait- 
ing porter with box. In no other small matter was the 



CAMP LEWIS 409 

newly acquired agility and strength of the troops more 
noticeable than in the speed and ease with which they 
negotiated this mounting. 

They seated themselves rapidly in order, raised 
windows, and resumed fun and farewells. He was a very 
tall man who, a-tiptoe, could shake hands with men at the 
windows, but there were many such. One waving hand 
wore a unique silver ring. "A leftover", seeing the ring, 
rushed to him and touched it with its mate, exclaiming, 
"Here's to you." He explained that most gifts in Cali- 
fornia "had run to fruits, nuts and raisins, but Palo 
Alto had them all High-Treed." A handsome design 
was chosen from many, and heavy silver rings made 
from it, to be presented to every man who entered 
the army from that town, then or thereafter. A party 
was given for the first contingent, and the rings were 
wished on that night. The Palo Alto man showed me his 
ring, a large seal center with his name, regiment and the 
date engraved thereon. This rested upon the wing of a 
silver eagle at each side, beak to band. Is that not fine 
and American. 

Something came into my throat as I thought of a 
man's catching sight of a like ring, in France, and 
fighting the better that both right hands bore daunt- 
less eagles, striking for the continued freedom of the far- 
away home, that the ring sealed them to helpfulness and 
generosity in memory of Home Folks back in open-hearted, 
open-handed California. 

Flashed vision of a lifeless hand upon the ground in the 
blood-drenched land which is No Man's, and an eagle signet 
ring intermittently lighted by a star-shell's glare. A 
comrade had seen it and staked life to draw the ring 
from the stiffened finger, to hide it away, to be returned 
to Palo Alto, his last will and testament, bequeathing its 
wearer's life and death to freedom, "whereunto I hereby 
set my hand and seal." That was the first disheartening 
thought. I put it by, and lost it in the fun and bustle. 

And now the long black snake of many joints began 
to crawl, its head vomiting fire and smoke, type of the 



410 THE NINETY -FIRST 

black subtlety of that Chimera which is crawling across 
Europe, and which shall be destroyed from within and 
without. 

And Dear Ones, though doubtless there were subsidiary 
reasons for their very apparent joy at going, one thing 
is sure, that your boy, Mrs. Aristocrat, your boy, Mrs. 
Plane, yours Mrs. Rich, Yours Mrs. Poore, yours Madame 
d'Esprit, yours Signora Silvera, aye and yours, Frau 
Schmidt, went gladly, and as Americans, all, never forget 
that, as Americans. 

They leaned from the windows, cheering, waving Old 
Glory, which proudly waved back at them, and if, to any 
other came my thought of what, beside France, they 
journeyed toward, it was lost in Glory and Honor, and 
if, also, in Immortality, do not all, you and I safe at home, 
die once? What better way than that way, for Country, 
for Peace? 

And as the long train passed, a woman, a mother, 
waved her kerchief and bowed her head and smiled at 
every separate Boy, yours and yours and yours, and every 
single Boy waved back, through her, his Fare Well, and 
his love to You, and You, and You. 



®Ijf 3l0t faalttt 



DE that dwelleth in the 
secret place of the 
most High shall abide un- 
der the shadow of the Al- 
mighty, 

XWILL say of the Lord, 
He is my refuge and 
my fortress, my God ; in 
Him will I trust. 

lURELY He shall deliv- 
er thee from the snare 
of the fowler, and from the 
noisome pestilence. 

'^^E shall cover thee with 
I— < His feathers, and un- 
der His wings shalt thou 
trust; His truth shall be 
thy shield and buckler. 

CH U shalt not be 
afraid for the terror 
by night; nor for the arrow 
that flieth by day; 

QOR for the pestilence 
that walketh in dark- 
ness; nor for the destruc- 
tion that wasteth at noon- 
day. 

B THOUSAND shall fall 
at thy side, and ten 
thousand at thy right hand; 
but it shall not come nigh 
thee. 

ONLY with thine eyes 
shalt thou behold and 
see the reward of the wicked. 



©' 



LE C A U S E thou hast 
made the Lord, which 
is my refuge, even the most 
high, thy habitation. 

OHERE shall be no evil 

befall thee, neither 

shall any plague come nigh 
thy dwelling. 

SOR He shall give His 
angels charge over 
thee, to keep thee in all thy 
ways. 

^^HEY shall bear thee up 
Vi,!^ in their hands, lest 
thou dash thy foot against 
a stone. 

^aHOU shalt tread upon 
^.y the lion and adder; the 
young lion and the dragon 
shalt thou trample under 
thy feet. 

(OeCAUSE He hath set 
'^^J His love upon me, 
therefore will I deliver Him; 
I will set him on high, be- 
cause He hath known my 
name. 

nE shall call upon me, 
and I will answer 
Him; I will be with Him in 
trouble; I will deliver Him, 
and honor Him. 

>T^ITH long life I will 
vA/ satisfy Him, and 
and shew Him my salvation. 



>i< 



-^ 



This is the Man, no matter what his rank, or none, who 
served his Country as an Aid-de-Camp. 



Name 



Born in 



Home 



College 



Businness 



Married Single 



Wife's Name 



War bride Children 



Entered National Army 
From 



By Enlistment 



Draft 



From Regular Army 



National Guard 



Previous Service in War, in 



From 1st 2nd 3rd Officers' School At 



Arrived at Camp Lewis 



Assigned to 



Transferred to Company Regiment Brigade Division 

Promoted from to 

Left Camp Lewis „ 



Shoulder to shoulder long drill days through, 
Cot next to cot through the short lone nights : 
Mile upon mile as the Continent backslides : 
On through the Danger Zone: on into France — 
See, here their Names I write, these were my Pals. 



Transferred to (Date) 

Embarked from upon (Date) 



Reached (Date) 

§ 28 



To keep our Little Children safe and childlike in Homes 
of Plenty, to prevent immolation of Sacred Motherhood upon 
the altar of lust, that a hellish breed pollute not our own heart's 
blood to inherit our Land; to hold one great, rich, beautiful 
Country of Refuge always Open to Opportunity but forever 
Closed to Oppression; to aid the Crucified Countries allied 
against the Hun and the Hell to which he consigned them — 
then US — to do One Man's Part in Making 

"The Whole World Safe for Democracy," 



entered that Inferno with the American Army, and 

Fought First at - and 

Thereafter at -.. 



And, please God, he came again Home, to finish the 
record with his own right hand, in the Joy of that Victory 
which is Sure, for 

Sigljt iiakp0 iltgl|t 

But should he fall — falter nor fail will he never — make 
certain that he entered Joyously into Glory, cheering Victory 
before 'twas won in France, finding himself quite at Home in 
that Fair Country where Freedom was bom, and rushing into 
"The House not made with hands," just as he used to do, for 
'tis his own, paid for with his life. 



CAMP LEWIS 411 

®l)? iKirat ilpm0nal Sag at (Eamp IGpuita 

So May came 'round, and Memory Day, a Holy-day 
for some, a Holiday for many. At half mast hung the 
grieving Flag, remembering her dead, those who had 
dyed her stripes in their own warm blood, whose fixed 
white faces had looked last into her clear blue sky, where 
stars still shone for eyes that saw no more. 

Sea and land had hid them, alas, our own land most. In 
far isles of the Orient had they laid them down, and now, 
after a generation's peace, the living had gone forth to join 
them. From this very cantonment had some already joined 
the Army of the Dead, and, invisible to themselves, or to 
those who stood beside them, close, were others who bore the 
mark devoting them to sacrifice. All this the saddened 
Flag knew. Some, too, of the waiting thousands, looked 
upon one another and in their hearts said. It is he? but 
seldom, Is it I? 

Even the Sun veiled his face with a mist. Motion- 
less the Flag clung to her staff, the people stood reverently 
quiet, even the bugles held their breath. 

Then the Sun reached its zenith and flung the cloud from 
his face. The poised arm of the old band master fell and the 
massed instruments called to the Star Spangled Banner to 
rise from her memories to her present, to her living, loving 
sons and daughters gathered below, ready and willing 
for what lay ahead, knowing that while those Colors 
fly, the whole world has a Country. And she rose, shaking 
out her flowing skirts, and from her full height, bade the 
Living be of good cheer. 

The band played America and the dear old tunes, their 
leaders having shown a kindly thought in putting all under 
the hand of Burger, oldest of the Band-masters, for the 
camp's first Memorial Day, and then the people scattered. 

But I, I rode through prairie more glorious than the 
Field of the Cloth of Gold, spread with the Plantagenet's own 
flower, broom which swept away all sadness, and, midway 
between camp and city, entered into God's Dormitory, 
where "He giveth his beloved sleep," where, tucked in as 



412 THE NINETY-HRST 

tenderly as by their own mother's hands, each lies still 
and safe in his lowly trundle-bed, through the long earth- 
night, "Till the day break and the shadows flee away." 
0, soldier boys, some of your heads are gray beneath the 
white marble pillows, but lads ye are always to your 
Mother Country, sons of the Nation. 

Under skies as blue as the eyes of the father patriot, 
whose name honors the sod under which they sleep, it 
is hard to think of death. And why should we try? The 
buttercups crowd one another, each holding in its golden 
chalice a glistening drop. Birds swing upon every tree, 
every budding shrub, and all their song is of life, life 
everlasting. Only the solemn firs refer to the past tragedy 
of the soldiers' dying lives and deathless deaths, singing 
low requiems over their biers. 

Above each grave the flag keeps guard. Having borne 
the stripes wherewith our country dear was healed, its 
stars shine fadeless, and there is no night in the little 
mounds. 

I confess to a heathen feeling that 'tis always well 
with the old soldiers, as Vikings held that the Valkyrie 
gathered into their arms all who fell bravely in battle, and 
swiftly bore them to Walhalla, thenceforth to live among 
the gods, the chosen bodyguard of Wotan. But rather 
should the lowly head-stones attest to "Honorable Dis- 
charge" from the Army of the United States, mustering 
into A Company, First Heavenly Host, in the Fatherland 
above. It is as if these were the stones of which Revela- 
tion spake, "And I will give him a white stone, and in 
the stone a new name written." 

We used to call this Decoration Day, and that is al- 
most as sweet as Remembering Day. To each we give the 
flag he fought for. The Decoration he won we place upon 
his breast — no iron cross, but flowers, the colors of 
Distinguished Service, the fragrance of Love and Memory. 

So, Soldiers, if you have not already risen to higher 
Service, lie you yet a little longer. 

Awaiting Reveille, 



CAMP LEWIS 413 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

HOSTESS HOUSE — MRS. MacMASTER AND MRS. THORNE — ITS 
HOMEYNESS, SMILING AND EFFICIENT HELPFULNESS — 

ITS PERSONNEL THE CAFETERIA — MISS CONSTANCE 

CLARKE, COMMANDING OFFICER — MRS. McCRACKIN — 
TYPES OF GUESTS — THE KNITTER — PROVERBS ILLUSTRATED 

A city housing thousands upon thousands of men and 
only one home: that city is Camp Lewis, that home the 
Hostess House. At least that is what you enquire for 
first time you go, but afterward, You and He and the 
Home Folks, which it stands for, call it the Hostess House — 
God-Bless-It, even if you are American and always in a 
hurry. 

What the cantonment ever did without it is quite in- 
conceivable. Think of dear little Mother come to see you 
and no standing place, even, out of the rain except the 
narrow passage at barracks. Wife could not come at all 
because Toddler won't be held. As for Sweetheart — now 
what do you think about that! Wet, cold hungry, dismal 
was the little group which dissolved, sobbing, taking the 
heart, the needfulest part of his anatomy, clean out of a 
fellow. Desertions came about from just such conditions, 
not from cowardice. 

Now War Department problems are worked out 
through Divisions, in multiplications of Camps, by the 
addition and subtraction of millions; but women do not 
like dealing with such large numbers. They solved the 
problem algebraically, thus: 

Question — What is to be done about it? 

Process— I+UXY. W. C. A., raised to Nth Power=X. 

Answer — The Hostess House. 



414 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



^ 




THE HOSTESS HOUSE 



And Professor Who S Who of the War Department, by 
no means the first to sigh with relief that the class had 
solved a problem beyond him, directed the women to prove 
the answer, and they did it. A committee of one hundred, 
country-wide, was appointed — the War-work Council of the 
National Board of the Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion to give it its impressive name — and a trial-sheet 
Hostess House was erected at Plattsburg. Mrs. William 
Mac Master of Portland, Oregon, was in New York to at- 
tend the graduation of her daughter Maisie from a wel- 
fare training school, and was appointed upon this national 
committee. Mrs. MacMaster served her apprenticeship 
upon the Plattsburg House, becoming Master builder 
through that great Labor Union of Women who observe 
no eight-hour day, and take few holidays, if any, since 
they cannot vote their budget of $4,000,000 for war activi- 
ties, but must raise it, administer, audit it, paying them- 
selves with Company checks good for more work. 

Well, the Plattsburg experiment having settled the 
question, the Young Women's Christian Association was 
requested by the United States Department of War, to 



CAMP LEWIS 



415 




provide Hostess Houses at all camps and posts. Accord- 
ingly seventy have been either built or contracted for, hve 
of them for colored women. 

Mrs. MacMaster came to Camp Lewis to arrange for 
the. second Hostess House to be erected, and Major Stone, 



416 THE NINETY-FIRST 

taking his construction map, accompanied her to the site 
she had chosen. "Of course," twinkled Mrs. MacMaster, 
"I picked out the best, and the whole plat, to make sure," 
which, as her own Scotch would phrase it, was canny 
o'her. Gen. Greene was greatly interested in the proposed 
building and so was Maj. Stone who, giving it his personal 
attention, hurried its construction so that in exactly six 
weeks it was completed and occupied. Until last Summer, 
Mrs. MacMaster had never made a public address in her 
life, but at three o'clock one afternoon the mayor of Port- 
land asked her to speak to a few thousands or so, and at 
four-thirty she did it, and did it well, for "Out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," and she has 
heart room a-plenty, and thoughts to spare. 

If Plattsburg had the first. Camp Lewis had the next, 
the best, and the largest of all cantonment Houses. It 
should be twice the size it is, though its "living room" is 
75x50 feet, and it is crowded every day. It cost but 
$33,000 though it is perfectly adapted to its uses, simple, 
artistic, strangely home-y considering its size, light even 
through the sullen Puget Sound Winter, perfectly aired 
without draughts through the tilting upper windows. 

It is to Mrs. Chester Thorne that the hundreds 
of thousands of visitors to the charming place owe this 
beautiful building, the only one at Camp Lewis that is 
beautiful. Her fine taste and practical ideas are embodied 
in Hostess House. It is such a relief from the prevailing 
ugliness that everybody is vastly grateful. I do hope that, 
as part payment, she takes the satisfaction in it that I 
should feel had I accomplished it. As for the remainder 
of the debt, it will be paid on the installment plan, in 
appreciation, pleasure, nerve-soothing, quickened art per- 
ception, here a little and there a little. Deferred pay- 
ments have their advantage, often coming when they are 
most needed, when one's life-courage and go-on-edness are 
running low — worse kind of poverty, that. Mrs. Thorne 
and the camp architect worked out the plans together. 
You can readily trace each in the building, and can tell 
which was cash down and which I. 0. U. work. The other 



CAMP LEWIS 417 

members of the building committee, Mrs. J. P. Weyer- 
hauser and Mrs. W. F. Geiger of Tacoma, Mrs. E. A. 
Stout and Mrs. Charles Stimson of Seattle, all worked hard, 
selecting and purchasing furnishings and equipments with 
one eye upon adaptability, and the other upon economy. 
The result is an object lesson in the comfort, home-y-ness, 
beauty and refinement possible with small outlay. 

To begin with, Hostess House is stained gray, inside 
and out, not that dull, cold, impersonal, impertinent oh-do- 
you-think-so-gray which would be worse than the unpainted 
walls of the rest of the cantonment, but a soft, young, 
pinkish gray, warm and cheery. Why, just passing it 
lights up the day. The morale of the army would be 
improved by a coat of paint, applied to the cantonment, 
not to the young girls who journey to it. Goodness knows 
they are sufl^iciently painted, with reverse effect upon 
morale and morals. If only they would show the same 
spirit in giving of their paint, that has been shown in 
other war activities, the government could afford to make 
the cantonment look more homelike, and prevent decay. 
It would cost only $200,000. Both faces and facades would 
be vastly improved. Gen. Helmich, recommended this post 
be painted — no intention of advertising a recent movie 
play, even though Camp Lewis men, doing fancy roping, 
did appear in the film. But the General only recommended, 
leaving details to others. Here, then, is a practical solu- 
tion: once our young girls see they may serve their coun- 
try, their camp, their company, they will gladly provide 
the paint by dividing fifty-fifty. 

What a detour! Here we are again before the Hostess 
House. Mark that it has curtains; in a man's city this 
is noticeable. Men may laugh about women's never feel- 
ing at home till the curtains are hung, but without knowing 
it, they, too, feel that no matter how hospitable, home 
should be just a bit drawn in. That was the reply to 
a young officer's query — "What is it makes Hostess House 
look, — you know, sort-of like home, even outside?" The 
plain, straight curtains are all of cotton crepe, dull green 
at the smoking room end, old rose at the cafeteria end, 



418 THE NINETY-FIRST 

and soft yellow in the living room, yellow which catches 
the sunshine when there is any, and which says cheerily, 
"Sunshine tomorrow" when there isn't. There are cushions 
on the window seats below. 

There's a big flagged porch which if I were a swell I 
shall call a terrace, though it isn't, and over it a pergola, 
"like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land," though 
it only suggested that lovely verse because it is delight- 
fully home-y and different, even if it has no vines as yet, 
in this city of sameness and utility. When the sun shines, 
the pergola casts shadows which make it look underneath 
like sunshine cake, every other slice frosted. When it 
rains, and even the most optimistic admit it has rained 
often this Winter — 

"Not often, only once, and for keeps." Now you have 
interrupted. What I started to say was that when it rains, 
people invariably lower their umbrellas under this pergola 
and look up surprised when the drops strike their necks. 
I have seen a thousand people do it if I have one, and 
that one myself. There is just a spot on each side where 
rain does not strike, and that is in the very, very corner, 
about a foot square. I know that, because a tall thin 
private, and a short thin girl sat there for two hours one 
blowy, rainy dusk, and were quite warm and dry and 
happy. 

To reach the door, unless you cut across lots, you 
walk over a long iron screen and a big mat. Hostess 
House is the only building on the cantonment that does not 
shout at you by word of sign. Wipe Your Feet! That's 
so irritating, don't you think? I always do wipe my feet 
unless I hear that, and then I can hardly make my feet 
behave. 

Well, let's go in. Even the doors invite you. They 
are all of glass and do not shut you out. Across the 
cheery room is a long table scattered with great numbers 
of magazines and lighted with several electric lamps with 
soft yellow silk shades. There are roomy willow couches 
and dozens of low willow chairs with pretty chintz cush- 
ions. There isn't a fussy thing in Hostess House, from 



CAMP LEWIS 419 

its brown-eyed manager to these identical cushions, every- 
thing is, like these extremes, simple, appropriate, artistic. 
This is, in itself, refining and educational. Many an over- 
dressed girl, from a home of gilt chairs and *'hand-painted" 
rolling pins, must have gained something, just waiting 
there. The only unbalanced thing is the thonged chairs, 
which induce unkind feelings and muttered remarks. They 
are fairly hysterical, those chairs, flinging themselves 
violently upon the floor if one but hang a knitting bag 
about their necks. It is undignified to be always having 
words with a chair. 

Of course you gravitate to the room's end to a huge 
fireplace built of stones which the glacier brought here 
so long ago and left a-purpose. The broad rubble chimney 
shows all the way to roof-tree. The man who built it, 
did it as one of old built the wall, "with both hands, 
earnestly." Verily he builded himself into that 
chimney, choosing the great stones and grouping 
them as if they were set in a coronet, which indeed 
they are, in the crown of Hostess House. I like to think 
of that workman, as his part of our Country's war, and 
peace, building a great chimney that would "draw", draw 
tired bodies and homesick hearts and beauty-searching 
eyes, signaling in flashes of fire its message, that, for all 
this fireplace typifies, men sit here far from their own, 
to go still farther soon. This fireplace never smokes, so 
if, as sometimes happens, misty eyes gaze into it, 'tis 
thoughts like these that fill them. Yes, that workman 
builded much more than a fireplace. Sitting upon the 
long bench before it, watching the logs blaze and crackle, 
this first long dreary Winter of war, thousands have seen 
in its coals homes upon lonely countrysides, in scattered 
villages, or great seaports, for truly, 

"Each man's chimney is his golden milestone: the Spot 
from which he reckons every distance." 

So sign your I. 0. U's to the workman for a gift more 
beautiful than even the great blue and white vases with 
which Mrs. Thome added the last touch to the broad 



420 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAMP LEWIS 421 

mantel, vases always filled with the beautiful greens of 
this Puget Sound country. 

For three months, an immense holly wreath, eight feet 
across, hung high upon the chimney, the gift of Portland 
at Christmas. Chief -of -Staff Major Clark sent a superb 
tree which pierced a hole in the roof, so that stars hung 
upon its branches — or perhaps they were Christmas tree 
ornaments — but that is another story. 

Half way up to the high girdered roof, across one end 
of the living room — you are but camping out anywhere 
else on the cantonment — is the writing corridor, with many 
camp-made pine desks, with pretty yellow shaded electric 
lamps. Good stationery is yours for the asking, and postals 
with four views of Hostess House, also free, which say, 
"Write home what you think of Hostess House." In these 
days of economizing, this is a clear case of ink-waste, 
because everybody does write about it without being asked. 
However, it is the first Hostess House I ever saw which 
would dare request people to write home what they 
thought of it. It is to be feared the Hostess women will 
be spoiled by undissenting praise. A breezy 'tenant in- 
sists, "I've been stationed in the motor section at seven 
of the cantonments. Camp Lewis is far-and-away the 
best, and its Hostess House is right in at the jump.." 
Fact is, there may be some little grumbling at camp, but 
the man to voice the first adverse criticism of Hostess 
House is yet to be located, so is the woman. 

No sooner said that, than heard of both. Several women 
said the writing gallery is monopolized by men. "Why 
don't some of them write in their Y. M.'s or Knights-of, 
and leave one desk at least for us women?" In fact I 
said that once myself, and the man said he grew sick of 
sitting in a hall where one had to stop writing to hew 
out another square of smoke every time he turned a page. 
That certainly surprised me, for the whole Country seems 
to have gone daft over smoking, like tangoing before the 
war. Why, the very women who went about preaching 
the evils of tobacco, are soliciting money "for soldiers' 
smokes", in response to "pathetic appeals" from said sol- 

§ 29 



422 THE NINETY-FIRST 

diers; have unpinned their white ribbons, and for all I 
know are tying them around packages of ''coffin-nails." 

Beyond the writing gallery, separated by an unseen 
hall, are the bedrooms of Hostess House Y. W. Staff, 
small camp quarters of pine, with swinging casements and 
chintz and muslin curtains, bare floors save for a large 
soft Navajo rug in each. Drawers and tables are camp- 
made and the unceiled sloping roof suffers the rain to 
play a soft Tattoo and to sound Taps in truly martial style ; 
for, by special act of Congress, these women are allowed 
to live within the cantonment, enlisted as war-workers, 
the only women except nurses who are allowed. So you 
see why Hostess House and the Base Hospital are truly 
the only bits of home that the men have ; for men may 
build houses, but never homes. In these huge canton- 
ments it is even lonelier that it used to be in army posts, 
where the officers had their own little homes. Even were 
they stationed here, privates, by army regulations, could 
not enjoy their hospitality; so Women-kind, you should 
share the gratitude of your boys at camp that these two 
groups of noble and attractive young women, albeit so few 
and so busy, are vouchsafed them. No wonder there is 
arising a new chivalry among them, which if it still 
existed, has been very generally hidden of late, especially 
in this West which once boasted of it. In street cars, 
for instance, men have shoved women aside to rush in 
and pre-empt seats — one disgusted conductor said sarcasti- 
cally to two women with bundles who had been repeatedly 
pushed aside. "Ladies, ladies, ivill you not kindly step 
aside and let these gentlemen aboard." I have repeatedly 
seen women, hereabout, give their seats to mothers holding 
babies, while men looked on; have seen old gentlemen rise 
with a bow to insist upon white-haired women taking 
theirs, while boys grinned. Never, now, if the seated are 
in khaki. The uniform seems to transform the commonest 
men. Once 'twas "an officer and a gentleman", now he 
is "a soldier and a gentleman." Speak to any private on 
the cantonment and prove it, always a courteous reply, and 
respectful. Perhaps the nurses, immaculate in white gown 



CAMP LEWIS 423 

and caps speaking Mercy, these Hostess women with 
lettered bands upon their arms spelling Service, with faces 
clean of rouge, eyes that shine with helpfulness, but do 
not burn blackened circles, look more worth-while, and 
awaken American Chivalry in war time. This Chivalry 
is another Compensation. 

Speaking of smoking, under the gallery a large room 
is devoted to it, with a fireplace, easy chairs, small stands 
and trays, a womanly little hint, piano with music, news- 
paper files, magazines. It is noticeable that men spend 
very short periods in this room. 

The women's rest room beyond the office is a godsend, 
restful even to the eye with its green rugs and curtains, 
its green covered pillows and couches, with warm cover- 
ings not forgotten. A long dressing table, daintily covered 
and topped with glass, a mirror over its full length, ranged 
with chairs, enables Miss Fair to look her prettiest when 
Mr. Young arrives. 

Off from this room is the dearest nursery, pale gray 
and rose, low white table and tiny chairs, dolls and blocks 
and cambric scrapbooks, and child pictures upon the walls 
for sleepy eyes to lose when they close in the white cribs, 
warm under the rosebud covers. Rose-color for them, dear 
little ones, but a deeper red for many of their fathers 
fighting for them Over There, soon. Mothers who have 
come a long way, want an undisturbed talk, and a Y. W. 
who loves children is there for no other purpose than 
caring for them. 

Here's the office where one may check belongings and 
obtain stationery free, buy stamps and gain information. 
If there is anything that those young women do not know, 
and do not tell with smiling and untiring patience, I have 
not yet heard it. There is no patronizing, nor manifest 
amusement when questions are absurd. It is safe to say 
that no one ever left that counter smarting from a mental 
pinprick. There is no keeping people waiting while the 
attendant gossips with friends. In short, it is as business- 
like as any army office in the camp, and there's a kind- 
liness, a personalness in the atmosphere which in itself 



424 THE NINETY-FIRST 

is reassuring. Yet such funny things do happen. One 
day up rushed a fluffy young girl whose brains, assuming 
she had any, were successfully camouflaged, and said 
breathlessly, "Ring the General up quick. I must see 
Charlie this minute. I've just come. You know we were 
only engaged one day before they made him come here. 
I want General Greene to send him right over." 

This was surely a test case, but the informant answered 
pleasantly; "I think we would better not speak to the 
General about it. He's rather busy, and the Lieutenant, 
or even the Company Sergeant, would be more apt to know 
him, you see." It would help, too, if she knew his regi- 
ment and company — by the way, what was Charlie's other 
name? It transpired she could answer all three questions, 
and the Y. W. 'phoned for the excited girl. 

By strange chance, that private was Charlie-on-the-spot, 
and at liberty, and allowed to come at once to Hostess 
House. When he opened the door she rushed at him and 
he at her. There was a swirl of girl and a wrapping of 
khaki which made everyone gasp, and the Hostess felt 
obliged to interrupt. "But we're engaged," cried the girl. 

"Haven't you a private room !" exclaimed Charlie. 

The Hostess explained that such contingencies had 
been unprovided for. "But what are we to do?" both 
demanded. The hostess suggested that the seat beside the 
fireplace was a trifle less conspicuous than the center of 
the hall. 

"And can't I even hold her hand?" inquired Charlie. 
"Not if I see it," replied the hostess, trying hard to purse 
her lips sedately. 

Hostess House was opened November 10. Perhaps it 
is just as well that the men had those three homeless 
months, and their women folk had nowhere to meet them, 
it is the more prized. I thought every man in the Ninety- 
First had been there, but in March found one who had 
just paid it his first visit, a young fellow from a wealthy 
California family, whose mother had come to visit him. 
Of course she must be met at Hostess House, which he 
had all along steadfastly refused to enter. He's making 



CAMP LEWIS 425 

a perfect nuisance of himself now, telling men who have 
spent every spare minute there all Winter, what a bully 
place that is. "I've been a plumb fool. I want to get it 
off my chest. Thought I'd strike a line of Darbs just 
inside the door. The head one would inquire my name 
and I'd say Sutton. She'd introduce me to the next, rapid, 
who would look clean over my head and say. Dee-lighted, 
Mr. Button? Next Button, then Hutton; each would hold 
out a limp hand and the end one would say, "Oh Mr. Nut- 
ton" which I should be, "come again", which I'd never do, 
and hand me a Bible." I assure you I have quoted him 
verbatim, his president, David Starr Jordan, is, as you 
know, a stickler for elegant English. 

Now this is positively the only time Hostess House 
women ever were lined up, and you see for yourself it 
was for the purpose of taking this picture. They are al- 
ways so busy that they flock alone — this is St. Patrick's 
day. I shall never see it without thinking of that "line 
of Darbs". The boyish-looking one in the center is Miss 
Constance Clark, manager of a nine whose team-work is 
wonderful. The vicious person on her right is a libel 
upon Mrs. McCrackin of San Francisco, Hostess. The tall 
one next is Miss Maisie MacMaster of Portland, Assistant- 
Hostess, with the smile that won't come off. The bright- 
eyed woman next, is Mrs. McBride. California, manager 
of the cafeteria, incidentally "pal of half the boys at camp", 
one of them says. There are three in a row not German 
anyway — and beside her Mrs. Dawley of Spokane, cashier. 
The little little one at Miss Clark's left is Miss Morjorie 
Greig, Tacoma, information clerk, the one who has never 
yet added to I-don't-know that insolent I'm-sure of most 
information clerks, and who kept serious finding Charlie. 
She has real genius in helping people with suggestions, 
the next Darb Miss Ruth, Gazzam — from Seattle, is as 
her friends call her, the Girl-with-the-million-dollar-smile, 
book-keeper. Mrs. Williamson, Santa Barbara, is in charge 
of the nursery and rest room, and the end one, a war bride, 
Mrs. G. A. Davis, San Francisco, assistant in the cafeteria. 
It is only just to add that the smiles were not donned for 




aiS 



■J 



CAMP LEWIS 427 

the occasion, any more than the clothes, just every-day. 
The picture is remarkable in that it caught Mrs. Mc- 
Crackin, the very first time she was ever seen, by any- 
body, unsmiling. 

I, too, "must get it of my chest;" I had had consider- 
able experience in Hostess Houses at various expositions, 
and I Did-Not-Like them. To be sure I had not, being 
myself an official, been "of the mob" to be snubbed there, 
but neither snob nor snub in mine, to be slangy. My visual- 
ization had not been a line of Darbs, but a group of society 
women, drinking tea in a handsomely furnished house, 
built at State expense, occupied by hostesses without ex- 
pense to themselves, appointed, not because tactful, grac- 
ious, or even clever, that they might make their State 
people, who were paying out their own money at the 
exposition, welcome and comfortable, dear no ! but to pay 
political debts, to sponge, to make everybody who dared 
it once, so unwelcome and uncomfortable that a return 
snub was superfluous. So I refused to attend the opening 
of Camp Lewis' Hostess House: I despised Hostess houses. 

There, I have had that on my mi — chest, for pome 
time, and been so ashamed of it. This Hostess House is 
just exactly everything those were not. The grand piano 
is for anyone to play, and there is good music every day. 
The camp boasts many voices hitherto heard only on con- 
cert, or even operatic, stages, many really great pianists. 
These drop in for a bit of home and are heard off-hand. 
Soldiers with instruments, on their way to give a free 
concert somewhere on the cantonment, play some numbers 
here. Anyone may start the fine phonograph and feed it 
records by the hour — and alas and alack, sometimes does. 
He enjoys it, anyway. There are books on shelves beside 
the fire ; help yourself. There is no rank at Hostess House. 
If any distinction is made, it is in favor of enlisted men. 
When General Greene drops in, as he sometimes does of 
an evening, nobody pays any attention. He talks with 
the Hostess ladies or anyone else he knows and applauds 
what he enjoys at the piano. Full of fun himself, he likes 
to see people having a good time, and they have it here. 



428 THE NINETY-FIRST 

The highest officers in the army stand in line for the meals 
they often eat here. All celebrities at camp drop in in- 
formally, Joseph Fall, the Canadian ace who brought 
down twenty-nine airplanes, said Hostess House was bully, 
and, when cornered, admitted flying also was bully — oh, 
everybody comes, even from the world's torn edges. 

For courtesy's sake one of the Military Police is kept 
on guard at Hostess House, though he has never been 
needed. Only once has anything unpleasant happened. 
When the negro troops were at camp, one of them, with a 
beautiful voice, came one evening and sang: delightful 
songs at first, then some that jarred, then some which 
disgusted. The Hostess had never been present at such 
a performance. She confesses that her knees shook like 
her voice when she crossed to the negro and said, "You 
cannot sing anything like that here." He glared at the 
gentlewoman who faced him, but a smile broke. He sang 
once more, something fit for his fine voice and left, having 
the grace never to come again. Several soldiers apologized 
for not interfering. One candidly said, "I think the others 
are as ashamed as I that we allowed such a thing in Home 
House and that we weren't sooner disgusted ourselves. 
We were just eating it up. I say it's too bad." And it was ; 
but it was the first and, to date, the last despoilment of 
the beautiful hospitality of Hostess House. 



Camp Lewis' H. H. (Her Highness) is everywhere con- 
ceded the most successful. At the recent national meet- 
ing of the association, it was commended as model in 
every respect. Committees constantly visit it for sugges- 
tion. In February came a lady from Camp Fremont to 
study it, for all Hostess Houses are not yet built. The 
same month Mrs. Walter Douglas visited the House for 
the National Board as Supervisor over War Activities for 
Women. By the way, talk of a capitalists' war; that, in a 
sense, it is. Here is a family of them, Douglas of Douglas, 
Arizona. The son, Lieut. Lewis D. is at Camp Lewis, 



CAMP LEWIS 429 

and his mother for the Winter at the Country Club just 
outside, while her husband, Maj. J. S. Douglas, is in charge 
of Red Cross stores in France where he went when the 
United States entered the war. Walter, his brother, ac- 
companied his wife upon this inspecting trip. What's the 
use of copper mines anyway, if Huns should come to oper- 
ate them, impressing our women at "twenty lashes a day" 
and ordering our little children "beaten if lazy", to work 
in them? 

And who is the head? See that young woman with the 
frank, brown yes, the nobly shaped head with its mass of 
brown hair, with the ready, winning smile and the alert, 
confident bearing? That is Constance Clark, and Con- 
stancy is what has trained her for this. She is another 
one who did not happen. An officer's daughter, her life 
has been spent at army posts from West Point to what 
might be called our East Point, the Philippines. She can 
ride, she can swim, both her eyes and her feet can dance, 
and she uses her head to think with. Miss Clark entered 
Y. W. C. A. work with characteristic thoroughness. She 
was assistant at the conference grounds near Del Monte 
on the famous Seventeen-Mile Drive, and in the Y. W. 
cafeteria at the Panama Exposition. In 1916, Miss Clark 
entered Simmons College, Boston, for a special one-year 
course in Institutional management. Methods there do 
not follow instructions in the poem beginning, "Mother, 
may I go out to swim?" The 1500 students took turns 
at catering for 500. They learned commercial laundrying 
by doing it, and dormitory work likewise. They spent 
thirty-two hours a week learning the management of hotels, 
cafeterias, and servants, by managing and serving. Miss 
Clark can direct and supervise and buy, because she her- 
self has done it all, and more. That is what the people 
of eight states and a territory — to begin with — have 
against Miss Clark, she has demonstrated her unusual 
efficiency so markedly, that she has been ordered to France 
to take charge of a large hotel for Y. W.'s in Paris. 



430 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAMP LEWIS 431 

"In life's small things be resolute and straight 

To keep thy muscle trained. 
Who knoivs when Fate 

Thy measure takes, or when she says to thee, 
I find thee ivorthy, do this deed f\or me." 

But her measure is taken, she can fill a larger place, 
and Constance Clark is to go. 'Twould be too much luck 
even for fortunate Camp Lewis, to expect such another. 

If Mrs. Thorne had been clairvoyant, she would have 
planned for thrice the space occupied by the cafeteria, the 
only place allowed on the cantonment by the War Depart- 
ment where food can be sold except by the government. 
Under generalship of Mrs. Mabel McBride, who has been 
for years in Y. M. C. A. work at Asilomar, California, the 
Conference Grounds, the Panama Exposition etc., the 
cafeteria has grown in success from the first, serving as 
high as 3800 in a day, with good home-like food, every- 
thing being prepared and cooked by the thirty-eight help- 
ers. Because of this and Mrs. McBride's careful manage- 
ment. Camp Lewis Hostess House is not only self-sustain- 
ing, but establishes another First in clearing some money, 
to be expended for a much-needed cold-storage plant and 
screens. The cafeteria and modern kitchen occupy the 
North transept of Hostess House. Nothing excapes Mrs. 
McBride's keen but merry eyes. Why, even her heavy hair 
is rippling over the joke of its being gray, such jolly hair. 
Smiles are catching at Hostess House. One day when help 
was short and the line long, someone said to Mrs. McBride, 
who had herself turned in to help clear up dishes, "You 
must be almost wild, Mrs. McBride." 

"Oh, do I look it? That won't do," and the half -smile 
brightened. It's not theory but practice with her. So 
the servers look as if they hope you will enjoy your food, 
and feel sure, from inside information about the spotless 
interior, that you will. And the Filipinos who carry off 
the trays, smile when they break the line. It is the same 
good feeling from one end of that Hostess House to the 
other. And to think I — and the ladies pay for their own 



432 THE NINETY-FIRST 

cafeteria living. Meals are served from seven A. M. until 
a quarter of ten at night. 

After Retreat, a long line of soldiers and their friends 
extends very often the length of the building to the end 
of the smoking room. A joker said, "I decided on pork, 
and by the time I got out of the smoking room to it, it 
was bacon." 

But there is no grumbling. People visit as they stand, 
and many of the women knit. One lady's sweater attracted 
several diners' attention as she stood in line knitting, for, 
in front, three large initials were knitted in. ''No, not 
original, the one I saw had U. S. A.", and she would good 
naturedly show it. Patience and Smiling are two more 
Compensations of this war. Impatience has been an Amer- 
ican characteristic, but when people's whole time is an 
anxious, working waiting, trifles do not vex. As for smil- 
ing, women have been stand-offish, but already, before we 
have really begun to suffer, the circles are broken. Before, 
had you smiled up at a woman standing near, she would 
have glanced about to see who was being recognized, or 
she would have stared, unsmiling, back; but now, oh now, 
you have somebody in the Service, and she has, and you 
are both knitting, and fearing and hoping, and smiling. 
Yes, you are certain to have your smile smiled back. 

But of course anybody would smile who was near Mrs. 
McCrackin, the hostess, not Hostess, for among the thou- 
sands who come and go, she moves with a personal wel- 
come and genuine interest and friendliness, and helpful- 
ness, that are in no sense institutional nor perfunctory. 
To many, so very many, she stands for what she does to 
me, the ideal woman — but for goodness' sake don't tell 
her I said that, how she would laugh. Frances Willard 
said, "The mission of the ideal woman is to make the whole 
world more homelike," so, evidently, Mrs. McCrackin is 
a woman with a mission, though you would never think 
it to look at her. She is the widow of a Commodore in 
the United States Navy, has traversed many countries, and 
known many charming people, but never one more charm- 
ing than herself, so genuine, sympathetic and full of fun. 



CAMP LEWIS 



433 




434 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Like the rest, she knits, has become an expert, but — 
it is too good to keep: at first she could not achieve a 
pair of socks, and 'most everybody's feet match, you know. 
She knit five before she could mate them. It was 
playing sock Solitaire. Every now and then, she would 
finish a sock which would chum with one of the originals. 
The first time this occurred she was insufferably proud 
and hadn't the heart to give them away. It was not till 
the game progressed that she did. This explains how it is 
that Mrs. McCrackin, an eminently truthful woman, an- 
swered so many young soldiers who watched the work of 
her white fingers, "Yes, this one is for you"; more than 
likely it would be another odd sock. It really was not a 
case of the man who promised sixteen people each a puppy 
from a litter of five, because he considered it a pretty 
mean man who wouldn't promise a friend a dog. Mrs. 
McCrackin nearly lost one sock because a six-foot-two man 
pulled and stretched it to make it do for him, but she 
rescued the sock, nursed it back to life, and put it under 
her mattress to press. 

Ever notice where the pockets on khaki come? You 
need no X-ray to detect what is there, but every man 
expects you to be unaware of it when he produces the 
picture. Almost all soldiers have one, and it requires slight 
encouragement, if any, to draw it forth. One young follow 
had none till last week when he went to Seattle. By next 
post a special delivery letter came to Mrs. McCrackin 
announcing that the sweetest girl in the world — thera are 
so many that one might almost write just S. G. I. W. as 
one does Y. W. C. A. — after five years' refusal, had con- 
sented to marry him and he "just had to tell somebody." 
Is it not a genuine compliment that the somebody is usually 
the hostess of Home House? And it is not always the 
young fellows who need mothering. One day an elderly 
man with nanny-goat whiskers said to her, "Be you the 
mother of this shanty? No-o, you're not old enough." 

Mrs. McCrackin asserted she was quite old enough, and 
falling into his humor, for she somehow always knows 
when people need her, asked, "Don't you want to confide 



CAMP LEWIS 435 

in mother?" And he did, poor old grey-haired boy, for 
his son was very ill in the hospital and, and — 

"And this is my rest hour, so we will go right over 
and find him." 

"Well, you're on the job all right," was his grateful, 
if not graceful, response. But that is her way, her rest 
hour is usually spent visiting the sick, going part way 
with the dying. Mothers, mothers, how much you owe this 
slender woman. Think your love from afar over to her, 
that it may shield her from trouble. 

Our war uniform could hardly be improved upon for 
service, but no one has yet arisen to call it beautiful. Young 
Lieutenant So-and-So, when in the world, is rich and spent 
goodly sums upon clothes. Quite casually he enquired at 
the desk if anyone had asked for him. Nobody had. He 
began a close watch upon both doors. Had he but been 
a British officer, his buttons and belt loops would have 
been brass, susceptible to a gold shine, but alas, nothing 
of his was amendable to polish but hair and puttees. He 
must have buffered his blonde hair, and the buttees re- 
sembled copper greaves on a knight of old. They actually 
reflected chair legs as he passed. No wonder he was ach- 
ing to be beautiful when one saw the Somebody. Copper 
greaves! "a warrior bold with spurs of gold" he should 
have been. The Lieutenant is quite a joke, by the way, 
for unable to pour his money into usual channels, he has 
bought of costly equipment, "two hundred pounds, or I'll 
swallow a cartridge-capsule", laughs one of his Company. 
Since nothing beyond regulations can be carried when our 
Lieutenant starts for France, the Tacoma Red Cross Gift 
Shop may receive some handsome impedimenta soon. 

Lieut. So-and-So, the diamond on his finger flashing 
signals to the diamond on Hers, sat down not far from 
the meeting of two such difl"erent people. A little old lady, 
her sweet face eager despite a deathly pallor, one arm 
covered with a shoulder shawl, was so intently watching 
the door that one could not help joining the look, to hurry 
the arrival. In rushed a tall private and grasped the dear 
little woman by both arms. Joy in her face faded swiftly 



436 THE NINETY-FIRST 

into pain and the story came out: boarding the train the 
day before, she had slipped and fallen upon her arm. "It 
hurt dreadfully. I thought it broke, but I was afraid 
they wouldn't let me come, so I covered it quick with this 
shawl, and climbed up the car step. It hurt considerable 
all night and Fm a little tired 'cause I couldn't lie down 
in the seat, but nothing counts, dear boy, 'cept seeing you. 
I'd pay ten times that pain; only, just hold my other hand, 
George-boy." Of course the brave little woman, widow of 
a Civil War Veteran and seventy-nine years old, was driven 
over to the Base Hospital, where the badly fractured arm 
was set and where Mrs. Hammond remained several days. 
She had borne the pain for twenty-seven hours without 
a murmur, to visit the grandson she had "raised from 
babyhood," and her sole support for years. 

"Ask exemption? I should say not. I didn't raise that 
boy to be a slacker, but to be a credit to his country, and 
he is." Yes, anyone could see that, he could not be other- 
wise with such a grandmother. If he is as brave as she, 
in the battles to come he will win a medal she should 
wear. Hostess House has sheltered never a braver woman, 
though many a one has smiled through a fare-well visit 
which was breaking her heart. You can tell the thorough- 
breds every time, and women have so great a part in the 
force which goes to the Front. Not long ago, a private 
on guard duty tried to shoot himself with the gun issued 
for the defense of his Country, two countries, for he was 
born in Italy. His wife had recently visited him, weeping 
and wailing, and begging exemption. Powder-burned, he 
was taken to the guardhouse, saved from a second attempt 
by a fellow guard who grumbled, "To-elle was where he 
came from, and to hell he was trying to go when he has 
a chance to go to France, and ticket some Germans to the 
afore-named." 

Where you find one coward, you generally find two ; and 
when you find one brave, you usually find two. A woman 
came from the rest room and sat under a window to wait, 
woman's heavy task. "I've shed buckets of tears this 
Winter: thought I'd run out, but my fourth son leaves 



CAMP LEWIS 437 

tomorrow and, well, I just went and bathed my eyes, 
wouldn't haveTom know it — my eyes aren't red, are they?" 

She turned as brave and steady blue eyes as would sight 
a rifle. When I said that, they shone. "There are no 
cowards in our family. We have fought in every war. 
None of my boys were drafted. I did feel a little bad about 
the fourth, not seventeen and over six feet. He went 
where he wasn't known, but they found out his age and 
refused him ; he kept on. He's learning to fly. I went 
South to see him. His officer says he's wonderful, that 
the world will hear from him, and that I shall be proud 
of him, but of course," she added simply, "I knew that 
myself. All four are good boys. The very air of this 
Hostess House is heartening. Oh, there he is" — 

Sometimes it is the S. G. I. W. who comes from the 
old home to see her lover. They sit very close upon the 
low couch, eat at the cafeteria, and after She is gone He 
sits apart at first. Sometimes he has gazed into the fire 
rather puzzled and has dropped that, "She seemed just the 
same, and somehow I am diflferent since I came to Camp. 
I don't understand." Others do, he has broadened. Likely 
he came to the cantonment a joking, irresponsible, just-for- 
a-day boy. In these few months he has attained to the 
stature of a man. Already he has distanced her, must 
go back to find her. If it is true now, will there not be, 
as Bishop Paddock said during a sojourn at Camp Lewis, 
an army of heart-and-soul misfits when the men come 
back? They will have fared forth in the Great Adventure, 
will have exchanged views with men of many nations. 
If the women at home exchange pink teas only, batting 
tennis balls while their men are firing rifle balls, limit 
their activities to a golf range, while Over There 'tis an 
Artillery ; or even if they knit and make surgical dressings 
while their loose-jointed minds "play at make-bolieve 
think", the tragedies of by-and-by are even now being 
written. 

This is the time to begin French, or if the ordin- 
ary foolery was begun at school, to learn to speak French 
that when He returns She may surprise him. Instead of 

§ 30 



438 THE NINETY-FIRST 

best sellers, Atlases should be all the rage, now that every 
boundary and river and town should be familiar to the 
stay-at-homes, and the pronounciation of its name recogni- 
zable. The limit so far, is Wipers (Ypres). 

Many of the beautiful, ancient chateaux of France will 
henceforth and forevermore exist only in memory, in 
history and pictures, but some are today occupied by our 
soldiers. The stories of these centuries-old piles are fascin- 
ating. Several of the palaces and chateaux belong to an 
old great family, la Rochefoucauld, and their Duchess of 
today was of your own State, Oregon, Senator Mitchell's 
daughter, and sister of the wife of Federal Judge Chapman 
of Tacoma. 

Following the army in Belgium, in France, in Turkey 
and Palestine and Italy, even on paper, that's travel. The 
great cathedrals which German Kultur is leveling to earth, 
— Joan of Arc — have you read that exquisite life of her by 
the last man you would think could write it, Mark Twain? 
Read of Shakespeare, and Verona, and Padua, and Venice, 
and of the Hun pouring his hordes toward Italy to batter 
down those dream-cities. Then, when They come to us, we 
shall not be strangers to our best and dearest, but have 
grown in mind and heart and soul with them; shall not 
find ourselves separated for a second time, and for life, 
from the real selves of those we love because they have 
passed us, — what a long, long way and back, from that 
brooding young fellow by Hostess House fire. 

Mothers and young wives who are living near the 
cantonment while the troops are in training, begin to 
arrive the middle of the morning. They sit and knit, socks 
and sweaters, and friendships, and, all three being hand 
made, will wear long. Some knit so mechanically that if 
they lay their work down long enough to tidy their hair 
in the rest room, the needles go on slipping in and out 
by themselves. Not in? Well out, anyway — Literal people 
are so wearing. Before the order about used-shells went 
into eff'ect, some knitter picked up brass machine-gun 
cartridges, just the thing, connected by a piece of elastic, 
knotted into a hole pierced in the side, to cap needles so's 



CAMP LEWIS 439 

not to penetrate their knitting bags, knitting bags of every 
hue and cry. Of them all, one "sounds out" as Regs would 
say, a symphony in purple, a concerto in C, a colored jazz 
band ! Extravagant language ? It is evident you have never 
seen that knitting bag: I have. 

All the Hostess House ladies knit incessantly, so, as 
relaxation from surgical dressings, does Mrs. Greene, who 
directs a class of forty in Tacoma two days a week, leav- 
ing her home at eight in the morning and allowing noth- 
ing to interfere with those two entire days. Mrs. Greene 
is greatly interested in Hostess House and counts it a 
rare pleasure to sit there awhile. "Perhaps you think 
you're going to wear out that sock-heel on a hike," re- 
marked a ruddy-haired, bright little wife, "Well you're 
not. Mrs. Greene taught me to turn that heel, and it's 
to be the family saving-sock while you're gone. Jimothy." 

Yea, truly do they all follow after that women in the 
Birthday chapter of Proverbs, "who seeketh ivool and 
ivorketh ivilliyigly with hei' hands." I always yiid like 
proverbs, one day a Y. M. C. A., young man gave me a 
little khaki-covered copy. Sitting before a blazing fire 
at Hostess House, turning its leaves, the whim came to 
illustrate the verses with living pictures, for Woman is 
neither ancient nor modern, but the Eternal Feminine. 

Even in those old days, knitting was by no means all she 
could do. Like that successful California fruit grower 
woman over there, "She corisidereth a field and buyeth it: 
with the fruit of her hayids she planteth a vineyard." 

Beyond is a woman "whose husband is known in the 
gates, ivhen he sitteth amoyig the elders of the land," 
and, oddly enough, she makes her own clothes: "She 
maketh herself coveriyigs of tapestry, her clothing is silk 
and purple. She is not afraid of the snow for her house- 
hold, for all her household are clothed, with scarlet." It 
seems bright colors were in vogue then as now. 

The athletic woman of that time could join in con- 
versation near, though she might be no clearer about the 
difference between a brassey and a — golf is too much like 
working your passage: "She (too) girdeth her loins with 
strength, and strengtheneth her arms." 



440 THE NINETY-FIRST 

The original Hoover, be it remembered, was Mrs. 
Hoover, and as a matter of fact, she is now. From Eve 
to Evelyn, Woman has always been the conserver. "'She 
riseth also while it is yet night and giveth meat to her 
household, and a portion to her maidens." Did you ever 
know a man who would bother himself about that? "She 
bringeth her food from afar. She perceiveth that her 
merchandise is good" — Did you even know a man who 
would not slip out of such household details? She did not 
wait for a food conservation card to hang in her window, 
for "She looketh well to the ways of her household." 

There sits a woman clad in the very purple and fine 
linen of this chapter and of the D. A. R. Chapter, to both 
of which she belongs, but unless the recipients offend her 
by telling, you would not guess that "She stretcheth out 
her hands to the poor, yea, she reacheth forth her hands" 
— not a social secretary's — "to the needy." Notice she goes 
out of her way to help, stretches and reaches. 

There are two young officers awaiting a woman who, 
with the cheery husband, was here this morning. There 
they come. "Her children rise up and call her blessed, 
her husband also and. he praiseth her." Will that ever be 
said of Mrs. Fluffy Ruffles, the charming war-bride of the 
society column, over there by the piano, already flirting 
with Major Blankety Blank — her husband is only a Second- 
Lieutenant — can "The heart of her husband safely trust 
in her?" Will she "Do him good and not evil all the days 
of her life?" I hae my doobts. 

As for the girl with the bold black eyes, the defiant 
air, she won't stay long, though no one will even hint that 
the atmosphere of Hostess House is rather high for her 
heart. Lemuel's mother taught then, what Lemuel's 
mother says now, "Give 7iot thy strength unto ivomen, nor 
thy ivays to that ivhich destroy eth kings," — not to speak 
of soldiers. 

Having fitted words to the portraits of some who have 
graced the House, the closing of that chapter shall be the 
closing of this, a toast to Hostess House and its workers: 
"Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works 
praise her in the gates." 



CAMP LEWIS 441 



Upon the fifth month's first day, centuries agone, joy- 
ously went forth our English forebears into the fields for 
hawthorne, wherewith to decorate their homes, so "bring- 
ing in the May." Of their maidens they chose a queen 
and crowned her with flowers. They hung wreathes high 
upon a ribboned pole and circled it from dawn till dark. 
Sweethearts, dancing and song, all well enough for May's 
first day, but May means "to grow" and that holds more 
than Spring. 

One tropic night, the fireflies, "watchmen of the insects, 
swung their tiny lanterns to light us to a great dim church 
in Cuba, toward which groups of children wended their 
way. Before the altar stood a priest who blessed the 
flowers they brought, then laid them down till the bril- 
liant blossoms banked the transept, "Not know? Why 
it is the month of Mary," of the Mother of children, lovers 
of flowers and flowers of love. So it is fitting that one of 
Mary's days should have been chosen for remembering all 
mothers. 

Anna Jarvis must have had the kind of mother that 
the dear sweet word suggests, and she honored her in 
millions of lives, when she builded that mother a monu- 
ment reaching from earth to heaven, from time to eternity. 
Every stone in it is a day, and once a year in Mary's month, 
every mother-lover in America turns mason and adds his 
to the wondrous shaft, first having written upon it all the 
loving words he may have left unsaid. This, then, he 
sets into the monument and it becomes his own mother's 
as well as Anna Jarvis' mother's. 

Never before was such a Mother's Day as May 12, 1918, 
the first her Boy was gone to war. There were never so 
many letters written in one day since Cadmus, blessed 
be he, invented the art of fixing thoughts that they might 
live forever. Would it not be tragic if thoughts should 
die with people, or even before? 



442 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Gen. Pershing had anticipated the day by this message : 

"I wish every officer and soldier in the American expeditionary 
forces, would write a letter home on Mothers' day. This is a 
little thing for each one to do, but those letters will carry back 
courage and our affection to the patriotic women whose love and 
prayers inspire us and cheer us on to victory." 

Secretary of War Baker added a line urging soldiers 
yet in this Country to remember the day by writing home. 
This was read at Retreat Friday, and this: 

"The division commander wishes to add his urgent appeal to 
the men of this command to act upon this suggestion. Do not 
forget that the time will come when this act will be impossible. 
Do not let that time be filled with vain regrets for lost opportunities 
to cheer the mother heart with a little letter." 

Thousands of the letters you wrote that day, Ninety- 
First, are laid away with the dearest things your mother 
owns. They have already been read so many times that 
she can, and does, repeat them to herself, every word, 
when she wakens in the night, otherwise the paper would 
be quite worn out. Just as likely as not they are now 
in the same box with your Father's love letters. There is 
probably room there for more which he has not written, 
so yours are especially precious. 

At Retreat there was also announcement made of 
special services at all Y. M. C. A. huts and K. C. halls, 
come Sunday. Forgetful men could not forget, for Satur- 
day morning there lay at the plate of every one who was 
to leave the cantonment, a mother's-day card and a flower, 
and the same greeted every man who was at Sunday's 
breakfast. There were more than 40,000 of these cards 
furnished the soldiers by chaplains and the community 
workers of every sect in camp. 

When Congress officially inaugurated a National 
Mother's Day, in 1914, we were not at war. Perhaps if 
we had been, there would have been permission given 
soldiers, for that one day, to wear a flower upon the uni- 
form, as insignia. A white flower bespeaks a Mother 
gone on ahead. There are more white flowers every year. 



CAMP LEWIS 443 

Many men remembered this, and anticipating that woeful 
day when watchers should lay their tardy flowers upon 
a quiet breast, sent them this Spring, to be opened in 
joyful excitement by Mother herself, to be proudly worn 
by Mother — "My Son, who is a soldier, you know, sent 
them to me." How beautiful she looked ! All good Mothers 
are beautiful, they never fade like other people. 

The saddest men were not they whose flower was 
white, but the poor fellows who knew in their aching 
hearts that theirs were the mothers who were best for- 
gotten. How terrible that must be. And if any who read 
are those mothers, woe' unto you. The void in their 
hearts shall be unbridged in yours. 

Some men sent their Sweetheart-Mothers candy. A 
few were shame-faced about it, too, as if they had never 
done it before; but that's no sign they will not do it 
again. Men at Camp Lewis have learned many things 
beside firing rifles and cannon. You remember Christmas? 
Well, to thousands of you, was not Mother's, another Red 
Letter Day? 



444 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

RELIGIOUS CREEDS BY CENSUS AT CAMP LEWIS — KNIGHTS OF 
COLUMBUS — MORMONS AND ELDER CALVIN SMITH — FIRST 
N. A. CHAPLAINS' CORPS — JEWISH ASSEMBLY HALL AND 
RABBI EGELSON — THE FLAG OF JUDEA — MANY ACTIVTTIES 
OF YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION — BODY, MIND 
AND SPIRIT TRIANGLE — FOSTER, EDITOR OF TRENCH AND 
CAMP — THE BIBLE DRIVE — FAREWELL CARDS. 

Early in the year, under orders from the War Depart- 
ment, a census of creeds and religious forms embraced by 
troops at Camp Lewis was taken, under charge of Lieut. 
George W. Raymond, personal Aid to Gen, Greene. The 
compilation listed 123 ways to Love God with all thy heart 
and thy neighbor as thyself; 123 readings of the mean- 
ing of "And what doth the Lord require of thee but to 
do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God! 

Of the 30,000 then in camp, 7390 were Roman Catholics, 
1114 Mormons, 354 Jews, 226 Greek Orthodox, all re- 
quiring special chaplains, beside 20 from alien nations 
and unusual forms of religious belief among Americans, 
leaving 20,916 Protestants of varying denominations, in- 
cluding 2616 Non-Sectarians, and excluding 196 avowed 
unbelievers in anything. There were 6 Christadelphians, 
3 Golden Rule-s — would all could honestly subscribe to 
their tenets — 2 Holiness, and 6 anything but that. Holy 
Rollers, 17 Mennonites, 4 Moravians, 23 Dunkards, 5 New 
Thought, 1 Non-Progressive Christian — afraid a spiritual 
census would add many to this lone professor — 41 "Ortho- 
dox Christians" who seem to be quite sure among the 
thousands — several Quakers and one Indian Shaker, a 
Swedenborgian, 17 Theosophists, One Good Samaritan 
— what a careless census, there must be more than that — 



CAMP LEWIS 



445 



and 1 Rosicrucian. Believe he signed that just to 
start people guessing about Rosicrucianism and himself, 
for some say it was a real cult and still exists in greatest 
mystery, and others that it never was anything but a 
hoax and died long ago. Of leading sects they numbered 
4487 Methodists, 3156 Presbyterians, 2494 Lutherans, 2229 
Baptists, 1628 Episcopalians, 112 Congregationalists. 

Christian Scientists numbered 660. They, also Luther- 
ans and Episcopalians, have no chaplain accredited to them, 
but their denominations sent visiting clergymen at their 
own expense, as did the Adventists, numbering 149. Both 
Christian Scientists and the Salvation Army built in 
Greene Park. 




"Number 1, K. of C." has a large auditorium and 
stage used for frequent entertainments and dances. Adrian 
Ward, the bright young General Secretary of the Knights 
of Columbus, has his office in this building, which is to 
be greatly improved and doubled in size. The Divisional 
basketball team is there coached by Capt. Cook, and box- 
ing and wrestling under Ritchie and Lloyd are frequent, 



446 THE NINETY-FIRST 

the Athletics office being nearby in Liberty Theater. Sta- 
tionery is furnished at the long desks, as in all such 
buildings. 

Beside six Catholic priests spoken of as chaplains in 
connection with their regiments and Base Hospital, is 
the Rev. Augustine Dinand of the Jesuits, who is sta- 
tioned at the first and largest of the Knights of Columbus 
buildings, near Liberty Gate. Behind the stage, between 
it and the priest's rooms, is an altar at which Father 
Dinand officiated at the First Mass celebrated at Camp 
Lewis, the First Sunday in October, 1917. Another unique 
service was conducted by Father Dinand in the isolation 
ward of the hospital where meningitis carriers are kept 
in strict quarantine, being even obliged to wear masks 
because they, immune themselves, convey the dread germs 
to others. A nearby shed was used for an altar. 

The Rt. Rev. Patrick Hayes, "Chaplain-Bishop of the 
United States Army and Navy", was an important visitor 
at Camp Lewis, where he spent two days upon a tour 
embracing all the camps, and visiting all Knights of Co- 
lumbus buildings. Another noted visitor was Lieut. Paul 
Perigord, who enlisted as a private and won his commis- 
sion by distinguished service in France, where he was 
wounded and given leave of absence. He is a priest, a 
classmate of Chaplain Nooy of the 346th F. A. 

There are three Knights of Columbus halls throughout 
the camp and the next Division will benefit by their im- 
provements. Catholic literature is given out free, and 
khaki-covered Douai Testaments. 



As Utah is one of the draft-contributing States to 
Camp Lewis, there are many Mormons in the 91st Divis- 
ion, including a number of officers, notably Maj. Mark 
Croxall of the Military Police. For this reason a chaplain 
has been assigned to the Division at large. Elder Calvin 
S. Smith. In age, he is a younger rather than an Elder, 
having been born in 1890, Salt Lake City. 



CAMP LEWIS 



447 




C (X^Afl 



He was graduated from Normal School of the University 
of Utah at twenty, and at twenty-one appointed President 
of the Chemnitz Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of 
Latter Day Saints. He served a year, and another as 
President of the Conference in Hamburg. There were 
five-hundred in these branches in Germany where he spent 
nearly three years, so that he speaks German well. Upon 
his return from Europe, he spent two years at the Uni- 
versity of Utah, from which he was graduated in 1915. 
He came to Camp Lewis in February as Chaplain-at-large 
to the Mormons. 

Elder Smith is very proud of the record of his church 
in this war, which has subscribed $450,000 to Liberty 
Bonds and sent $600 toward fitting up one of the regi- 
mental halls at Camp Lewis for a Library and rest room, 
(the 346th M. G. Bn.) 



448 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Heber J. Grant, President of the Quorum of the Twelve 
Apostles of the Church, is Chairman of the Finance Com- 
mittee in the Utah State Council of defense; C. W. Nibley, 
Presiding Bishop of the Church, is a member of the Trans- 
portation Committee and the Committee of Industrial 
Survey, and John A. Widstoe, President of the Uni- 
versity of Utah, belongs to the Food Conservation 
Committee of the State. James H. Moyle, Prominent mem- 
ber of the Church, is Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 
at Washington, D. C, and Brigham H. Roberts, a member 
of the First Seven Presidents of Seventies in the Church, 
is Chaplain of the 145th F. A. 

As for the family of Brigham Young, who succeeded 
the founder of the faith, there are thirty-seven in the 
service, from Col. Willard Young, a son, through twenty- 
two grandsons to fourteen great-grandsons. Sixteen of 
these were taken in a group at Fort Douglas. He says at 
Kearney there was an entire Mormon regiment officered 
only by Mormons. Richard W. Young, President of the 
Ensign Stake of the Church, Colonel of a Utah regiment, 
has been promoted. He commanded the 'Mormons' in 
the Spanish American War. Richard Burton, a grand- 
son of Brigham Young, has been awarded the Croix 
de Guerre. 

"And", adds the Chaplain of the 91st, "Utah's quota 
for the first draft was 4945 men, seventy-five per cent 
Mormons. Until the first draft call, Utah was fourth in 
the Union in the percentage of enlistments." 

Latter Day Saints of the 91st Division has as Chap- 
lain one of the family which founded their church. His 
father, Joseph Smith, President of the Mormon church, 
was nephew of Joseph Smith who founded it, claiming to 
have discovered buried metal plates containing the book 
of Mormon in an unknown sacred language, which he 
translated. He also promulgated the doctrine of polygamy 
to which the Germans are reverting. 

The Book of Mormon says : 

"Wherefore, at that day ivhen the book shall be de- 
delivered unto the man ^ of whom I have spoken, the book 



CAMP LEWIS 449 

shall be hid from the eyes of the ivorld, that none shall 
behold it save it be three ivitnesses, by the power of God, 
besides him to tvhom the book shall be delivered, and. they 
shall testify to the truth of the book and the things therein. 
And there is none other which shall vieiv it, save it be a 
few — that the ivords of the faithfid should speak as if 
it were from the dead". 

^ The footnote referred to is "Joseph Smith, Jr.," and 
of the "few" — which were eight, three of Calvin Smith's 
family, Joseph Smith, Sr., Hyrum, and Samuel H. Smith, 
signed the testimony: 

"Be it kniown unto all nations, kindred, tongues and 
people unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, 
Jun., the translator of this ivork, has shown unto us the 
plates, which have the appearance of gold; and as many 
of the leaves as the said Smith has translated, ive did 
handle with our hands; ive also saw the engraving thereon, 
all of which has the appearance lof ancient ivork, and of 
curious workmanship. And this ive bear record with 
words of sobeymess... We have seen and hefted, and know 
of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of ivhich 
we have spokeyi. And we give our names unto the ivorld 
to witness unto the world and ive lie not, God bearing 
ivitness of it." 

Naturally, the Mormons segregated themselves in the 
religious work of the camp, though Elder Calvin Smith 
was secretary of the First Chaplains' Corps organized in 
the National Army. Unique surely, in the world must 
it be, Catholic and Protestant, Jew, Gentile and Mormon, 
divergent in faiths but convergent in works: Father, Rabbi, 
Reverend, Elder, in the Church Militant, but Lieutenants 
all in the National Army, wearing one uniform, aim- 
ing only at Service. Every fortnight they meet in the 
Library of the Depot Brigade to discuss tactics, to lay 
plans for additional work for their already overworked 
selves. For instance. Chaplain Rexroad was appointed 
to see that a regimental quartet, its chaplain and a Y-man 
go weekly to Base Hospital to sing in the wards, where 
the boys welcome them with shouts if able, and smiles if 



450 THE NINETY-FIRST 

weak. Beside what is mentioned elsewhere, chaplains have 
erected five assembly halls and furnished them for the 
soldiers with funds raised by entertainments and gifts. 

Entertainments themselves speak plainly for the broad 
spirit which this war is engendering. Perhaps for that 
reason, chaplains are in demand everywhere, though they 
used to be reckoned by army and navy, to be quite frank, 
very largely as a nuisance. So much are they needed, 
and wanted, that the government has sent out an appeal 
for ministers of any faith to apply, and a school has been 
established at Fort Zachary Taylor to train chaplains. It 
will be readily seen that only clergymen who long for the 
work will resign their charges to accept a uniform and 
thirty-three dollars a month, first class private's pay, while 
they begin a hard day's work at a quarter of six in the 
morning. They drill an hour as infantry, an hour as 
cavalry, take concentrated doses of instruction in sanita- 
tion, first-aid, military and international law and courts- 
martial, for part of a chaplain's duty is to visit guard- 
houses and to represent their charges as council at trials. 
When graduated, they receive mileage to their homes, and 
when appointed to regiments are rated First-Lieutenants. 

Now that a great revival of faith in God is sweeping 
the world, though it would seem that faith would falter, 
if not fail, amid the horrors of this war, the chaplain's 
road strikes straight to the Front, and the man has be- 
come a minister. 

Jewish activities are under direction of the Jewish 
Welfare Board with headquarters in New York, which 
prepares its workers in two schools for service. The 
first course is well stated by themselves: 

"It begins with the President's message to Congress, 
outlining the reasons for American's participation in the 
ivar, and the ideals for which America is fighting. The 
fact that the Jewish religion has never taught non-resist- 
ance to the forces of evil, and that the Old Testament 
teachings are strongly in favor of fighting for a righteous 
cause, is impressed on the Field Workers and through 



CAMP LEWIS 451 

them upon the men i7i the ranks. Furthermore, the course 
familiarizes the workers ivith the orgayiization of the 
Army and Navy, and provides them with the information 
yieeded to ansiver questions raised by conscientious object- 
ors and by those ivho would give heed to peace propaganda. 
The Draft Law is carefully explained, together with the 
Insura7ice Laiv as it affects soldiers and families of sol- 
diers. Other lectures provide i7iformation on the orgayiiza- 
tio7i a7id activities of the Commissio7i on Training Camp 
Activities, the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., the K. of C. 
and other age7icies with wkom the Jeivish Welfare Board 
luorkers are 7'equired to maintain the closest and most 
cordial relatio7is. 

After this a course of four weeks' practical training 
at Camp Upton proves whether they are suited for ap- 
pointment. These field workers conduct services, includ- 
ing a daily service; the educational work, which includes 
English to foreigners or the illiterate, American History 
and Civics, French, Social Affairs etc. Mr. Eimon Wiener 
was Field Representative at Camp Lewis until Spring, 
when E. N. Saulson of Detroit took his place, with head- 
quarters in the Depot Brigade. The next Division will 
have a fine building, to be erected near Liberty Gate. 
Nathan Eckstein, president of the Northwest Branch of 
the Welfare Board has been progressive in all this. 

The first Jewish Chaplain at Camp Lewis was Lieut. 
Louis D. Egelson, appointed to serve "at large" and who 
went to France with the 91st Division. Born in Rochester, 
educated in New York City, he took the degree of Bachelor 
of Arts from the College of the City of New York, 1904, 
Master of Arts, Columbia University, 1907, and of Rabbi 
from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1908. 
He served as Rabbi at Washington, D. C. and then became 
Assistant Director of Synagogue Extension of the Union 
of American Hebrew Congregations. He was organizing 
congregations and religious schools on the Pacific Coast 
when called to the service. He was commissioned in San 
Francisco and came to Camp Lewis in March, 1918. 

It is one of the home-iest places in camp, this Jewish 
Assembly Hall, for the large room has been "grouped" 



452 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




LIEUT. LOUTS D. EGELSON 



into smaller rooms, scattered with rugs, big wicker rock- 
ing chairs and plenty of tables. Until one lives in a can- 
tonment, he never thinks how tables and rockers are 
missed. There are pictures upon tlie walls and hanging 
baskets, and a reading corner, for this is a branch of 
Liberty Library. There is a handsome clock upon a shelf 
which holds jars of tobacco from which any man may 
fill his pipe. Cigars and cigarettes are passed about, or 
candy, cakes, tea, it is quite like dropping in at a friend's, 
for there is an atmosphere of good fellowship about the 
place that attracts others than Jews, especially those of 
the Officers Training Camp hard by. Nothing is sold in 
the building, nor was anything bought for it. Friends 



CAMP LEWIS 



453 




454 THE NINETY-FIRST 

furnished it; some send cigars and cigarettes in large 
quantities monthly, and every week boxes of cake come 
from nearby cities. Every Wednesday also come a group of 
young women to mend for the soldiers at Welfare House, 
to visit their sick and those of others at the Hospital, and 
to take dainties — Welfare House, that's a beautiful name. 

When Jewish recruits arrive they are welcomed here, 
and every one receives a comfort kit, a "housewife" with 
toilet articles etc., and upon leaving, a farewell box con- 
taining various essentials to comfort upon a trip, hand- 
kerchiefs, tooth paste, shaving cream, two packages of 
cigarettes beside "the makings", a corncob pipe, nuts, 
raisins, candy, and fruit cake which will keep as long as 
a man's patience will allow him to wait for it. Great 
cases of these farewell boxes were despatched from home 
towns to this hall when the Ninety-First went Across. 

Over in the corner, in Chaplain Egelson's desk, is a 
box containing cards in three colors, indexed; alphabetic- 
ally, according to camp organizations, and according to 
home towns. In this way Chaplain Egelson knows every 
Jew in the cantonment and can "keep track of the boys." 
That box went with him to France and will mean much 
to the Home People. It was an original idea, so was the 
naming of the Jewish Headquarters that its initials should 
spell the Hebrew name for God, Jah. 

Jews have always beautifully blended home and church 
life. They have a deeply interesting custom of honoring, 
with an annual memorial service, the day of a parent's 
death, no matter how many the years which have passed. 
No true Jew ever fails to say Kaddish, and many observe 
the death anniversary of any member of the family. Such 
a service may only be read before a "congregation" which, 
ritually, must include at least ten males. So Mr. Saulson, 
in charge of Welfare House, has broadened the scope of the 
card index by the addition of lists of the dates of these per- 
sonal memory days for all Jewish soldiers, and very care- 
fully looks them through every week. He never fails — and 
he is in entire charge at present, working early and late, in 
camp, in Tacoma, and in the district — he never fails to 
have ten men present for the precious service. 



CAMP LEWIS 455 

Khaki-bound copies of portions of the Scriptures con- 
tain, for one book, Proverbs, for whose pregnant wit the 
ancient Jews were noted, even among other Orientah'sts, 
who always excelled in this fascinating form of terse litera- 
ture. Also bound in khaki are the beautiful prayers of the 
Jewish ritual printed from back to front, Hebrew upon 
one page, English opposite. Commenting upon this to 
Lieut. Jacob Goldstein of the Depot Brigade, he remarked 
that at camp many read one as easily as the other. As 
for himself, the family tutor taught him and his brothers 
to read both at the same time. The Latin classics he 
acquired at the University of Syracuse. No other people 
within our borders are such fine linguists as Hebrews, who 
commonly know four and five languages; their educated 
classes often speak more. One at Camp Lewis grammatic- 
ally and fluently converses in eleven, including Arabic, 
Turkish and Rumanian. This is so well known that if 
an interpreter is needed, the Jewish Welfare House is 
likely appealed to, and Mr. Saulson has added another 
valuable card index by listing twenty-seven languages 
which men of his faith speak. These are upon separate 
cards so that, for instance, if Bulgarian is needed, he has 
but to turn to the card so headed and find upon it the names 
of all Jewish men who speak that language. If one sol- 
dier cannot be found, another may. It is astonishing 
upon how many of those cards the same names appear. 

Within the book are a "Prayer for the Government," 
Aynerica, Hail Columbia, and The Star Spangled Banner. 
By the way, do you know that a new flag flies, new to 
Today, but the oldest in all the world, the flag of David? 
Its field is of white, with a double triangle of blue, form- 
ing a star and called the shield of David, in the center, 
and a horizontal stripe of horizon blue at each side. It 
is long indeed since that flag has streamed toward the 
blue and white of the sky, and it beckons its people to- 
ward a new hope. 

Jews readily enlisted, at first in the British army, 
and when we entered the war, in ours. There are 8000 
in the Palestine Legion, composed entirely of American and 



456 THE NINETY-FIRST 

English Jews fighting under the Jewish and British flags 
for the restoration of the ancient Fatherland. All who 
survive of these men will make their homes in Palestine. 
They have already adopted the Hebrew language. This 
Palestine Legion is commanded by Col. Patterson — whose 
famous mule regiment saved the situation in the East in 
the early part of the war. All officers except the Colonel 
are Jews. 

An army of 10,000 is now being raised in America and 
England, recruiting from Jews who are not as yet citi- 
zens of this country. 

Jews have raised much money and have entered en- 
thusiastically into all war activities. Reasons for this en- 
thusiasm are inherent. The United States is the only 
country which from the first has aff'orded them all the 
rights and privileges of other citizens, yet it is not grati- 
tude alone which rallies them to her flag. Were Germany 
victorious, Russia, Poland, Turkey, Palestine, Mesopotamia 
absorbed, Jews would sulfer martyrdom as of old; but 
with victory to the Allies, Great Britain has promised the 
establishment in Palestine of a Jewish center which might 
develope into a Republic as pure as that which Jews real- 
ized, for many centuries, before any other was even 
dreamed of, for theirs was the first democracy recorded 
in history. Four thousand years ago it shone out from 
the darkness: think, forty centuries before again it be- 
came necessary to wage this war "to make the world safe 
for democracy," safe from a people reverted to the type, 
the savage. 

As for the sacred land itself, what of the Hun in Pal- 
estine could be predicted from one act of the Kaiser, who 
ordered an ancient moat filled to make an unnecessary 
new road for his conquering vandal feet. How different, 
how wonderfully different, when the British Genera] 
Allenby took Jerusalem and, halting his victorious troops 
without, with a little group of his officers entered with- 
out fanfare, and passed through the ancient Gateway of 
the Friend into the Holy City. That is its beautiful name, 
many centuries old, and this was surely the advent of a 



CAMP LEWIS 457 

great friend, whose first greeting was a proclamation that 
all people within the city, of any race and any creed, 
were safe, and should be protected by the victors. Of 
that historic entrance Helen Gray Cone wrote this ex- 
quisite verse: 

When through the gateway that men call The Friend 
Passed quietly in the little EyigUsh guard, — 

Brown soldiers, battle-scared, — 
A mystic Presence all unsee^i, unknoivn. 
His age-long iveary wandering at a7i end. 
Gray Israel returned imto his own! 

Elsewhere is noted the strange connection between 
Camp Lewis and the taking of Jerusalem, so that all Jews, 
and especially those of this cantonment, feel the keenest 
interest in Capt, Oldenborg of the 91st Division. By the 
way, a brother of Capt. Welty, is in Mesopotamia, having 
gone at the beginning of the war with the British as a 
Y-man, and been on the firing line ever since. Somehow 
one never thinks of anyone's living in Mesopotamia today. 
Here's another connection. Mesopotamia was the original 
home of the Jews. In the dawn of history, Abraham 
emigrated from that country to Palestine. 

When, July 17, the Fast of Av, the Black Day, is 
commemorated at the Jewish Assembly Hall, the men who 
have hitherto gathered there will be upon the sea, near- 
ing the Titanic struggle which will restore to them that 
Jerusalem whose destruction, 2504 years ago, the Fast 
mourns. Maybe by next Av, they will be entering Jeru- 
salem, their City of Peace, after many centuries of 
wandering and sufi'ering. What a marvelous Home-coming, 
a Nation's, and that People the oldest existent I To 
that Home-coming, a Toast, drunk from the clear waters 
of American Lake, "Next year in Jerusalem!" 

The Young Men's Christian Association work at Camp 
Lewis has already been noted, but should be further re- 
ferred to in this chapter devoted to religious activities. 
The Huts are always short-handed, and to speak of in- 
dividuals is like counting chickens in the open. One man, 



458 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




however, is so closely identified with the Y. M. C. A. work 
at Camp Lewis that A. M. Grilley naturally comes into 
the mind when it is spoken of. A Westerner, Kansan, he 
has been for many years identified with that work in 
Portland. He is another man who can laugh; people like 
to have him around. He it was who thought of supplying 
soldiers with baseball for noons, for the trenches, and, 
when the draft came in before the Ninety-First vacated 
barracks, "rustled Y. M.'s for haysheds" and every other 
available place to keep the newcomers from being home- 
sick. He, too, first sent Y. M.'s two-hundred miles down 
the road to meet drafted men's trains and come in with 
them. That, up to this writing, was done by no other 
cantonment. In other words, "Grilley's alive." 



CAMP LEWIS 459 

Twenty a month is their quota overseas, so that there 
is scarcely a man at Camp Lewis who was there in the 
Fall, and the call is constant for volunteers to the Y. M. 
C. A. ti-aining schools in New York, Cambridge and Chi- 
cago. Graduates wear a uniform similar to the army's, 
but gray, rank as sub-lieutenants, so to speak, not allowed 
the officer's cap nor a cord upon the service hat. The as- 
sociation's red triangle is upon the sleeve. This symbol 
signifies their efforts toward the development of the whole 
Man — Body, Mind, Spirit. The uniform of the Knights 
of Columbus is similar, with K. C. on the sleeve, while 
Jewish workers wear the star within a circle, "the shield 
of David" on them. 

BocUj : Both associations have been right-hand assist- 
ants to the Division Athletics Council in developing re- 
cruits. Boxing bouts are held once a week. Equipment 
for it, and for all forms of ball play and other games, is 
purchased in factory lots. It is one of the wonders of 
military training how soon men are toughened by drill and 
wish such continued violent exercise as baseball. Even 
on hikes soldiers demand gloves, bats and balls, and Y 
secretaries "hit the trail" with them. This is one of the 
Compensations for the war: The United States will be 
a nation of athletes, and, so fathered, mothered by women 
very generally doing manual work, children will be as 
strong and beautiful as those of ancient Greece. 

When the Divisional trenches were being — built? dug? 
— men working in shifts from sun to sun, demanded a Y- 
Hut. How pretty it was and how good it smelled, fir boughs 
and tent. In the center a fireplace — just that, a place for 
fire, and a big one, piled with pitchy wood when the men 
came in shivering from their digging. It had an octag- 
onal rail of saplings just high enough to rest a fellow's 
damp shoes upon, and a pipe went up through the top. 
At every joint of this rail stood a post of small tree bear- 
ing a candle, that one might read, and upon every little 
pine desk bounding the tabernacle, stood another, in an 
artistic literal candle-stick, that one might write — triangle 
stationery there a-purpose. Also there was upon each a 



460 THE NINETY-FIRST 

vase of beautiful wild flowers, which grow all obout. Now 
H. W. Page, who designed and engineered that lodge, is 
a remarkable man in at least two respects, he knows that 
even wild flowers cannot look anything but down and out 
in a baking-powder can, so he fitted to each a bark jacket 
from a tree whose curves were those of the tin cans, and 
the flowers never suspected they had left home; secondly, 
he can be, and was, bright and good natured on four 
hours' sleep, which he "takes between-times so the night 
bunch won't feel neglected." His lowly cot was curtained 
off by fir boughs. A box on the counter enabled men 
to make their own change when they wanted their eternal 
candy, gum, tobacco and stamps. Athletics equipment had 
been brought along, and they were even planning a moving 
picture projected by means of an automobile magneto. 

Not having room for games in their Huts, as the eight 
long, one-story brown buildings upon fire breaks are called, 
the Y's built two large Play Sheds containing ball courts 
and diamonds, boxing and wrestling rooms. When troops 
numbered nearly 52,000 just before the Division went out, 
these, Butte Building and the K. C. Halls, were all turned 
over for barracks. 

Speaking of moving pictures, airplanes are the only 
place they are not carried, and heaven knows aviators 
have theirs, real and reel beneath. A regular weekly even- 
ing is given to good moving pictures at every Hut, free, 
of course, and a Divisional at Y. M. C. A. Auditorium. 
It is common for men among the onlookers "to see them- 
selves as others see them," or with shouts and jokes to 
recognize those "others," so many picture-men are at 
Camp Lewis. A delightful innovation is now possible. 
Home Folks, if you will send clear photographs with a few 
explanatory words on the back, to F. F. Runyon, First 
National Bank Building, San Francisco, your boys will be 
delightedly surprised by seeing a bit of the home town, 
crowded with people they know, an odd or historical house, 
whatever your locality boasts. The Y. M. C. A. want such 
pictures from every place contributing men. Think of 
the possibilities! 



CAMP LEWIS 461 

Mind: Camp Lewis is many a man's College, a Y. M. 
C. A. Hut his Alma Matey\ This is another Compensation. 
As was said in the talk before Hostess House fire, if wo- 
men at home only keep step with the marching men, the 
intellectual unlift of the nation will endow children with 
brains fit for strong and beautiful bodies. For one thing, 
we shall have acquired the musical speech of France. 
Seven hundred men a week in one Hut are studying it. 
Prof. C. L. Helminge, who has been spared half the time 
since September by the University of Washington, has 
now been generously loaned entirely to Camp Lewis Uni- 
versity, in exact opposition to the reason the Germans 
sent their professors to this Country. He was born in 
Chalons, France — center of terrific fighting — and served 
for three years with the French army in Algeria. He is 
teaching all the officers of the 361st Infantry, one-hundred 
ten, nearly twice that number from the Signal Corps, 
more, lately, from the Presidio. 

Another French teacher of romatic life and unusual 
opportunities is Charles Pioda, formerly court interpreter, 
Seattle. Born in Switzerland, where his father had al- 
ways been prominent, the young man accompanied him 
to Italy where the elder was for eighteen years ambassador, 
and those years the unification period. Under his father, 
Pioda was in charge of the embassy at Rome for ten years. 
Another son was ambassador to the United States from 
Switzerland. Mr. Pioda knew King Humbert, Queen 
Margharita, and the present King Victor when he was 
a boy. He was well acquainted also with King Gustave of 
Sweden. He met the present Kaiser's father, but never 
had the pleasure of meeting the present incumbent and 
incumbrance — though both Pioda and a son who was 
injured, had hoped for that pleasure, having off'ered war 
services. The former well knew Ollivier, Napoleon Third's 
cabinet minister during the Franco-Prussian war. 

From Italy Pioda went to Egypt where he was in- 
timate acquainted with Ismail Pasha, the dethroned vice- 
roy, and his successor son, also "the Gloved Prince," Has- 
san, whose palm bore the hated cross, branded by Abys- 



462 THE NINETY-FIRST 

sinians when a prisoner among them. He knew Gordon 
Pasha, too, and Kitchener, in Egypt's stirring times. As 
for rulers of the realm of music, these were friends ; Liszt, 
Rubinstein, Tosti, von Bulow, Wagner, and he knew Renan. 

Pioda was in Spain when he met a California girl 
studying abroad. They were married and went to South 
America, living for ten years in the A, B, C, coun- 
tries, traveling everywhere. Why, Pioda needs every one 
of the several languages he speaks, and could fill as many 
more with stirring and delightful experiences — if only 
he does not notice he is telling them. One would learn 
rapidly from Pioda just to be able to hear his French 
thoughts. 

Yes, the 91st Division has been fortunate in French 
teachers. In an emergency, Col. Cavanaugh's orderly 
did so well that he will continue to help, for Varello, 
though an Italian, has lived in France. There are other 
instructors, all under charge of the Y. M. C. A, The 
class rooms at Y-Huts are crowded every evening. 

The University of Washington has been alive to Camp 
Lewis from the first. Prof. Landes, Department of Geo- 
logy and Head of Survey work, had a ten-foot square map 
made to assist Y. M. C. A. instructors in keeping up with 
the war. This was such a success, that copies were made. 
The first large map, however, was made by Secretary 
Coan, whose daily lectures upon war movements regularly 
attracted fully fifteen-hundred soldiers during the Spring 
ofl'ensive, lines being shifted upon the map as battle waged. 

In every cantonment, as part of the Y. M. C. A. War 
Activities, a paper, always called Trench and Camp, is 
published. Again the Ninety-First was fortunate. Its 
editor, Chapin D. Foster, was not only a newspaper man 
of thirteen years' experience, with what is inelegantly 
termed "a nose for news," but one whom everyone likes, 
witty and interesting. He covered camp personnel, pro- 
gress, fun, and with such variety of real information, that 
Trench and Camp was eagerly read not only by sol- 
diers, but by everybody else when it appeared Sundays 
as supplement to the Tacoma Tribune. Of all copies of 



CAMP LEWIS 



463 




CHAPIN D. FOSTER 



Trench and Cami) published at different camps it is 
surely brightest and broadest. No sectarianism was al- 
lowed to creep into this paper. All camp news was "played 
up" in the same spirit. 

Mr. Foster, who had for several years been owner 
and publisher of a paper at Grandview in the beautiful 
Yakima Valley, was eager to fight, but being refused, 
leased his paper in January and came to Camp Lewis to 
accept what he could do, and, as Editor Foster, was really 
of much greater service in Trench and Camp than Lieu- 
tenant Foster could possibly have been in camp and trench. 
The author gratefully acknowledges many hints gained 
from Trench and Camp. 



464 



THE NINETY-FIRST 



Illustr'ations added to its value when mailed "back 
home", as it very generally was. Fifteen thousand copies 
weekly were placed upon Y. M. C. A., Hostess, J. C. and 
K. C. counters, where they were free to anyone who 
wished them. Some men regularly mailed them to a 
number of friends in various parts of the country. In 
this way people were apprised of what the boys were 
doing and what was being done for them. It is only 
fair to add that the publication of Trench and Camp by 
the Tacoma Tribune was very largely the gift of its 
owner, Mr. Frank S. Baker, who was one of the men in- 




fluential in obtaining the acceptance of the cantonment. 
Several hundred dollars a month, beyond part expense 
covered by the Young Men's Christian Association, was 
Mr. Baker's quiet contribution toward the war. He is 
not aware that this is mentioned in these pages, nor even 
known; mayhap would not wish it, but soldiers will like 
to know that he cared that much. 

This is the new Headquarters Building where camp 
secretary A. M. Grilley and financial secretary Wilson 
have their offices, with other general Y. M. C. A. 
workers, and Editor Foster. There also is a happy-faced, 



CAMP LEWIS 465 

efficient stenographer and typist, crippled as to body but 
whole of heart and brain, who gladly serves his country 
in the only way he can, and by his good cheer unwittingly 
reproves those of us who will not answer our own prayer, 
"Lord, make me ivilliyig to run on little errands." 

Y-secretary Morth, formerly a Yakima lawyer, has 
given soldiers legal advice and assisted several in making 
their wills, free, of course. 



And how the world has changed when dancing is a 
Such ! Think of an internationally known solo dancer 
doing his bit at a Y entertainment; another, listening to 
a phonograph, making shorthand — or would you say short 
foot-notes? upon triangle paper, composing a new dance 
for "stunt night", which is a regular weekly institution. 
A sign in a Y-Hut urges every man to register what he 
is good for, and surely there remains nothing new. The 
Y has thought out a new service, however, which is clear- 
ing the dazed look from many a visitor's face, the in- 
formation booth near the bus station. 

As to musicians, writers, lecturers, who have appeared 
at the Huts, is it not pleasant to meet people like, for in- 
stance, Fred Emerson Brooks, poet, author of many books, 
inimitable story-teller, albeit as genial and witty upon the 
floor as he is upon the platform, which cannot be said of 
most celebrities. And that is a strong advantage in hear- 
ing such at Camp Lewis, they are working for love, love 
of country, love of its men. They are at their souls' best, 
as they would be in books. Lord Bacon was "the wisest, 
brightest, meanest of mankind," so we are really fortunate 
in knowing him only at his wisest and brightest, with no 
hint of meanest, in his works. Some of the inspiration of 
"Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg" will go with the grand- 
sons of the men who made it — will it not, Ninety-First? — 
into their charge upon the Huns. Would Brooks might be 
there to immortalize you ! 



466 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Y-2 featured a series of evenings devoted to repre- 
sentative entertainments by and for the men of allied 
nations who were in camp, and in this way accumulated 
a number of handsome presentation flags, Y-8 is the 
newest of the Huts, and like the youngest child is best 
provided for, though that may be because Secretaries 
Oliver of Los Angeles and Cameron of Anaconda were so 
popular at home. If there is anything a soldier does 
enjoy it is a rocking chair, he need not fight for one here. 
There are dozens of flags, and curtains ; and shades, first 
at camp, and piles of music, and from the evening Col. 
Saville opened it, the Trains have made it their Depot. 
They even had a wedding there just before the Military 
Police started for France, when A. Z. Taft qualified for 
writing Margaret Winkelman's name as war bride. The 
favorite Hut for weddings, however, was Y-1 where four 
couples were married in one week. 

=1: :|; :■: :i: :!: :|: :1: =!: :!: :;= 

Spirit — but the true man is indivisible. One of the 
Y. M.'s expressed it about the weekly religious evening. 
''Of course; but we aim at that every night, according to 
its kind." Saturday brings Quiet Night; then, if your 
Boy is not taking his holiday in town, he is re-reading 
your letters and answering them, looking furtively, or 
straight-forwardly, at your picture — you know which — 
and thinking, with all his heart, of home. And if it is 
a real home, that will be his religious night, and he will 
smile up at the motto on the wall which says "Let's be 
ivhat they think tve are," a smile which answers, just 
as if he were two-foot-six instead of six-foot-two, "Let's." 

There is much of good literature given away at Y- 
Huts beside Testaments, separately-bound copies of Psalms, 
St. John etc., and of a size to slip into the uniform pocket. 
Also women sent out thousands of card copies of your own 
Ninety-First Psalm which you will find herein. One boy 
said decidedly, in the language of the day, "Look what 
this opened to on its own. Five of you shall chase an 
hundred, and one hundred shall put ten-thousand to flight. 
Me for the Book, and Us for the Huns." In Spring the 



CAMP LEWIS 467 

Y. M. C. A.'s conducted a Bible Drive, issuing cards for 
signature to promise to read the Bible throughout the 
war. One young fellow, and he had been a prize fighter too, 
said with a comical mixture of seriousness and fun: 

"If the Bible's good tactics for General G, 
"It's mighty good tactics for Corporal C, — 

come on boys, right by fours," and his squad signed with 
him. The card bore these words of a good fighter. Gen. 
U. S. Grant: 

"Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor of our 
liberties; write its precepts on your hearts and. practice 
them in your lives. To the influence of this book ive are 
indebted for the progress made in true civilization, and 
to this we must look as our guide in the future." 

One of the signers said he did not need the book for, 
on November 12, 1917, his mother had given him the 
Testament presented to her father November 12, 1862. 
So Corporal Kennedy of the 316th Engineers will carry 
through this war the little Book which his grandfather 
carried throughout the Civil War, perhaps under Grant 
himself. 

Chaplains, K. C.'s, and Y. M. C. A's united in provid- 
ing every man's place at breakfast, Christmas and Easter 
mornings, with suitable cards, the first, doubtless, that 
many men had ever had to welcome those Holidays, and 
the Jews joined them with pretty cards for Mothers' Day. 

At first recruits had been welcomed at the gate, after- 
ward incoming draft trains were met a day away, and 
the Y, M.'s "went a piece down the road" when the sol- 
diers left for other camps; but when the Division started 
for France, the Y. M. C. A. had a khaki-colored card for 
each with Bon Voyage upon it and Gen. Pershing's words, 
"Let ypur valor as a soldier and your conduct as a man, 
be an inspiration to your comrades and an honor to your 
country." 



468 THE NINETY-FIRST 

IRpiJ (Ernaa iltlUary iSrlirf lurrau at (Eamp ICruiifl 

In appropriate proximity to Hostess House and Young 
Men's Christian Association Headquarters, midway stands 
a small building representing a big work, and bearing upon 
its walls a Red Cross. In fact the work grew so fast that 
the building had to extend, and a small warehouse now 
adjoins it. This is the Camp Lewis Bureau for Military 
Relief and if there is anything all other organizations does 
not accomplish for the relief of soldiers and their families, 
it is covered by this Red Cross bureau, which might be 
called the Relief Quartermaster Department. A special 
bulletin issued by Gen. Foltz, commanding, is wortti re- 
printing in entirety, because succinctly stating its province, 
under Field Director Arthur Pritchard, of Tacoma: 



"To give emergency financial aid if it will relieve distress in 
your family. 

"To make sure that competent legal or medical aid, or both, is 
given to your family if their necessities call for either. 

"In other words, to relieve your anxiety about your beloved ones 
and to provide emergency relief. 

"It is expected that your family will assist themselves in every 
way possible before application is made to the Red Cross. 

"Applications for assistance should be made by the soldier in 
either of two ways: 

"Direct to his company commander, who should take up the mat- 
ter with the field director at the Red Cross building, 1st avenue 
north and East Way, or 

"Direct to the field director of the Red Cross, 1st avenue north 
and East Way. 

"The American Red Cross society desires to furnish one woolen 
sweater and two pairs of woolen socks to all members of this com- 
mand who need them. These articles are to be issued to each regi- 
ment as part of the regimental equipment and not as the personal 
property of the soldier, so that when a man is separated from the 
service these articles should remain with the regiment for reissue. 

"Regimental and separate organization commanders will submit 
to this office before noon Monday, -January 28, 1918, a requisition of 
the number of sweaters and socks needed completely to equip their 
organization." 

W. R. Van Valen and his wife are resident managers 
of this work. The former is bonded and every article 
passing through their hands is accounted for and monthly 
statements made of all activities. Mrs. Van Valen is a 



CAMP LEWIS 469 

host in herself, for it is just the work she loves, and 
for which she is therefore fitted. She does not furnish 
relief more bitter than lack, bruising feelings already 
black and blue, as some self-important Red Cross workers 
have done, but shows an inventiveness, a ready sympathy 
and understanding that are themselves comfort and help. 

Early in the year, much of the assistance given by 
the camp Red Cross was necessary because of the de- 
layed allotments, which occasioned not only actualy suf- 
fering in the families of soldiers, but rendered the sol- 
diers themselves almost worthless from worry. The worst 
of it was that it was so needless in a great rich country 
like ours, with its billions of subscribed moneys. To some 
families the delay was not only embarrassing but humil- 
iating, and they would not tell of it. One woman of cul- 
ture and family, was about to be turned into the street 
when the Red Cross at camp stepped in and saved not 
her alone, but our army, from such disgrace. All such 
were instantly relieved, and without publicity or the bind- 
ing of red tape which ties up so much so-called Charity 
work, which, indeed, is not Charity, either in its sense of 
Love, or its non-sense of injustice, but simply gives some- 
body who has no other chance to attract the public eye, 
or to climb a rung higher upon a society ladder, a chance 
to perform. 

In one month there were 150 consultations with sol- 
diers, relative to many things. Free medical attention 
was secured for their families, three operations per- 
formed without expense, etc. All this is as it should be, 
only justice, not that hated Charity, which I, for one, 
would rather die than accept. In time to come, all medi- 
cal aid will be afforded a nation by taxes, I firmly believe. 
It is to a Country's self-interest that all its people should 
be healthy, whole, and efficient. 

The importance of having a woman, and a sympathetic 
woman, in connection with Red Cross work at Camp 
Lewis was several times seen when women visited camp 
or came to ask for help in the life-crisis which women, 
some scarcely more than children, must meet, each for 
§ 32 



470 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Legal advice was furnished several, and if necessity 
demanded, the telegraph speeded decision. The Red Cross 
even took charge of the household belongings of a young 
Lieutenant who was suddenly ordered away and whose 
little home was near camp. He handed the assistant- 
director the house key, told him the price asked, and left. 
Another Lieutenant and his wife moved in and paid the 
money to the Red Cross worker. 

Thousands and thousands of sweaters, socks etc., have 
been carefully distributed by this Red Cross bureau at 
camp. These came in hundreds of packing boxes which 
so crowded the warehouse, that a larger had to be built. 
At the Country Club, army men's wives worked almost 
as many hours as their husbands, upon knitting and surgi- 
cal dressings. Mrs. John H. Leavel, wife of Capt. Leavell 
of the 316th Engineers, and Capt. Harmon Bonte's wife 
of the same Corps, were workers two whole days in a 
week, and the former took charge of classes. 

Space was arranged at the Red Cross camp bureau for 
many women who came to mend sweaters, also. This, as 
every woman knows, is a difficult thing to do, and a tire- 
some; but many expensive sweaters were thus saved, 
woolen socks darned, and the like. 

Yes, men, women and children are enthusiastic over 
the Camp Lewis Red Cross Bureau. This co-operative 
spirit of genuine helpfulness is a great Compensation for 
the war, and will last over into the great peace which will 
follow. Men at camp have contributed much to its stores. 
A sewing machine, in recognition of the sewing the Red 
Cross does for them, was one much appreciated gift. As 
for children, they are natural enthusiasts which the world 
has not spoiled. Boys have made packing boxes, and 
girls towels and gun wipers and wash clothes and — oh, 
everything. Four large boxes of tobacco at one time were 
presented, boxes of figs, whole cases of gum, boxes of 
raisins. An odd but useful gift was twenty-three flash- 
lights. One hundred invalid chairs were presented. Over 
1500 pints of home-made jelly were sent from Red Cross 
organizations in Salt Lake, for hospital patients at camp. 



CAMP LEWIS 471 

But, when Filipinos have a Red Cross parade in Manila, 
and men, women and children, lepers, on Molokai, give 
$248 for Red Cross work, it is not to be wondered at that 
peoples, great and small, of all colors and religions, of 
all social ranks and attainments, group themselves at the 
four quarters of the earth upon the great, square, 

RED CROSS 



472 THE NINETY-FIRST 



CHAPTER XXV. 

ONE MAN LIKES "WILD WEST" FOR DIVISION NICKNAME — 
CAPT. JACKSON AND ROBERT MORRIS — CAPT. RAEDER — 
IMPORTANCE OF VETERINARY CORPS — ANIMAL OPERATING 
ROOMS AND HOSPITAL — PROCESS OF HORSE TRAINING — 
PURCHASING POINT, FORT KEOGH, LT. COL. WINTERBURN 
— HORSE-SHOERS', SADDLERS', AND PACKING SCHOOLS — 
REMOUNT ASSEMBLY HALL — COWBOY RUSSELL'S GIFT 
AND LETTER — FIRST AND LAST REMOUNT EXHIBITIONS — 
FAMOUS RIDERS — EXPERT FARM HANDS — A BIRTHDAY 
REMOUNT PARTY. 

While Gen. Greene was in France, the nickname Wild 
West Division was "wished on" the Ninety-First. Upon 
his return, asked if he liked it, he emphatically answered, 
"I do not." Most people agree with him, but Capt. Jack- 
son answered quite as emphatically, "I do." He went on 
to say that men of this Division are unusually husky, with 
the rush and enthusiasm of the West, young, eager for 
the war; that he thought that the moral effect upon Ger- 
man ranks, hearing them so heralded, would be incalcul- 
able. They would fear Wild Westerners, picturing them 
bristling with Bowie knives, their "hip pockets built for 
quarts," drawing seven-shooters if coffee was weak, wear- 
ing neckerchiefs like that eternal Hart's, with the rest of 
the wild-and-woolly of the moving picture West. They 
would expect whole Companies of painted Indians, toma- 
hawk in hand, ready to scalp German prisoners, to wreck 
upon them tortures more exquisite than the Huns have 
visited upon their captives. Yes, Wild West, and a yell 
to go with it. 

"There's much in a name," said he, "witness the 
Death's Head Hussars, and Roosevelt. Why, his very 



CAMP LEWIS 473 

name is worth a thousand men to any regiment in France." 
Capt. Jackson and the doughty ex-President are old friends. 

This was a new view. I myself notice names, as you 
may have guessed. At any rate, if there is any place in 
the cantonment where Wild West applies, it is to the 
Auxiliary Remount, for there, approached by a broad 
prairie for a road, fenced in only by the virgin forest, is 
all that remains of what is meant by the West. 

The West- 
great snow-clad mountains and milky falls, broad-rushing 
streams fertilizing empires, forests so high, so dense, that 
the sun is lost within ; ranches wider than principalities — 
these remain; but of the old free life, the generous help- 
fulness, the broad, warm neighborliness, what? In the 
city hard by, with its narrowness and lack of interest, its 
petty greed, its fear of one another's schemes and scorn 
of poverty, nothing; but in this Remount, peopled by men 
who have lived widely and feared none, who are the real 
West, much. 

Here are men who have done things, who have 
sacrificed big interests, left their broad acres and 
moneyed positions to enlist their expert knowledge and 
energies where they can be best applied, but where there 
is small chance for parade, promotion or prominence. As 
Capt. Jackson said, "These fellows can't walk, never 
learned how, but they can ride. They know horses as 
thoroughly as horses know them, and they are willinjr to 
dig post-holes if that is what is wanted. Never have 
caught a surly look, never had a court martial, nor a 
man in the guard-house, nor a fight, nor even a quarrel. 
These Remounters are men, let me tell you." 

It would only be odd were they not, for two reasons — 
oh, a dozen reasons, some of which have already appeared, 
but of these two, one is why they are at the Remount. 
Most of them enlisted, men whom Capt. Jackson knew, 
or knew of. Afterward, he wrote to the Sheriffs of counties 
in the cowboy country asking the record of men who were 
coming in the draft and, when these applied to him, as 
they frequently do, insisted upon being satisfied upon two 



474 THE NINETY-FIRST 

points only, were they men and were they horsemen, and 
the first was quite as important as the second. It was not 
enough, either, that a man could ride anything on four legs, 
even a bucking horse coming down upon all four, stifl"; 
he must understand horses. It is significant that they do 
not "break" horses at the Remount, but "gentle" them. 
Why I went into one corral where a big animal would 
insist upon your riding him, his head was upon your 
shoulder, his nose poked into your pocket for a possible 
apple; he was a perfect nuisance. Three weeks before 
he was a biting, kicking, jumping, man-killing outlaw. 
When kindly Sergeant Richardson would say of a 
horse, "Appleluce has Arabian blood in him, but he had 
the meanest disposition I ever saw," you may know that 
was a Hun of a horse. While we were talking about him, 
another came by, went up to a window from which blankets 
were hanging to air, pulled them out and dragged them in 
the dust before his owner. "Now he knows better than 
that, but I can't punish him because I didn't notice the 
poor fellow. A horse is like a small boy, often doing 
mischief just to attract your attention." 

All over the Remount you will see nothing but kind- 
ness to "our little brothers, the other animals," and, 
strangely more uncommon, nothing but kindness from 
humans to humans. The whole atmosphere of the place 
is work, expertness, good cheer, courtesy, and generous 
appreciation of the other fellow. Oh, but it is refreshing. 
And the Commanding Officer is typical of it all, the em- 
bodied spirit of that West which is passing. 

Capt. J. W. Jackson is a Harvard man, as are several 
others at the Remount, three of his own fraternity. He 
arrived at Camp Lewis September 1st, "twenty minutes 
ahead of the first load of horses." He is tall, lean, lithe, 
capable, soldierly, joking, "the best loved man on the 
cantonment," whose opinion counts; the kind of a man, 
you know, of whom no one even casually speaks without 
adding, with lighting face — Bishop or boxer, officer or 
orderly, Y. M. or K. C, horse or dog — "Now that's some 
man," or its equivalent. You would not know his sect. 



CAMP LEWIS 475 

but you would his faith. When a Commanding Officer's 
orderly brightens up at sound of the buzzer, and his men 
beam as they salute, and his horse wonders if he will be 
too busy to ride today, that man gets all there is of 
service,because he gives all. 

Capt. Jackson takes after his ancestor, Robert Morris, 
signer of the Declaration of Independence, whose large 
fortune, accumulated by his own energy, was freely at 
the disposal of the government when it was a magnificent 
experiment, penniless, warring. In fact, ten years 
before, he had sacrificed thousands in trade relations by 
assenting to the Non-Importation Act, and ardently es- 
pousing the Colonial cause. Morris served for years on 
the Ways and Means Committee of Congress, rough, 
narrow ways, and precarious means, involving his firm's 
credit and his own. More than once the Morris hand 
signed the Morris name in crises which threatened his 
Country, and the million and a half dollars which enabled 
Washington to carry on that last campaign against Corn- 
wallis was raised by Morris' untiring exertions and upon 
personal notes secured by his unquestioned integrity. 
Liberty Loans in thoi^e Liberty Days were harder to raise 
among an almost penniless people, than now, when un- 
bounded wealth is secure under an established government. 

From 1781 to 1784, Morris had entire charge of the 
monetary afi'airs of the United States. He established the 
Bank of North America. He sacrificed his own business 
and fortune to those of his Country, though he 'absolutely 
refused to become Secretary of the Treasury, and sug- 
gested Hamilton. Having served with all he had, he 
resigned, though he was afterward Senator from Penn- 
sylvania. 

J. W. Jackson responded to the same love of country 
by leaving his great ranch at Williston, North Dakota, and 
organizing the Camp Lewis Remount, a clearing house for 
animals used in every branch of military service, cavalry, 
artillery, oflJicers' and orderlies' mounts, headquarters 
troops, military police, ambulance corps, supply trains and 
quartermasters'; horses and mules. Thousands gathered 



476 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




CAMP LEWIS 477 

by United States buyers and inspectors throughout the 
country, are shipped in carloads to the Remount Station. 
Many of the animals have never known bridle. Add to 
their wildness, car-sickness, and bruises and injuries 
from travel and kicking, and you can understand that 
hundreds of such animals, unloaded at the siding at once, 
need expert care, treatment and training. And that is just 
what they have, for among nearly 500 enlisted men at 
the Remount are not only the champion riders of the 
world, but those owning and managing great ranches and 
ranges, and men whose whole lives have been spent in 
rearing, training and curing animals. 

A regular army man among these Remount officers 
is he who, literally and figuratively, is at the right-hand of 
Capt. Jackson, its center. There is only one other place 
he would rather be and that is in France, especially since 
Capt. Jackson, just before the 91st Division went over- 
seas, was ordered to organize an enormous Remount Sta- 
tion in that country. Capt. Raeder enlisted in 1899 ana 
served in the Philippines, in the island of Luzon and in 
Manila. He has known Border service, and as Quarter- 
master agent brought back all stock after the evacuation 
of Vera Cruz in 1914. From Galveston he went to Panama 
and the Culebra Cut. At Camp Gaylard he was in charge 
as Quartermaster-Sergeant. He had served in the 1st, 
3rd, and 6th Cavalry, and at Panama passed the examina- 
tion obtaining a commission as Captain, and was ordered 
to Camp Pike, Arkansas. He was assigned to the Re- 
mount early in October, 1917. Upon the departure of 
Capt. Jackson, Raeder was in charge until the arrival 
of Capt. H. C. Bayley. He has put his heart into the 
work as well as his experience, so that its success is his. 

At Capt. Jackson's left is Capt. Andrew W. Donovan, 
Division Veterinarian, who has accomplished much in this 
great department throughout the cantonment where thou- 
sands of animals are used, beside those of the Remount, 
at which Capt. Kenneth F. Hinckley, center of the second 
row, is in command of the Veterinary Corps. This Corps 
has lately been placed under the general supervision of 



478 THE NINETY-FIRST 

the Division Surgeon, since the diseases of man and beast 
intermingle, if they are not identical. More and more 
the world finds the weal of one to be the weal of all, 
the ill of one to be the ill of all. The remainder of the 
group are First-Lieut. Sandberg, Second Lieuts. Patterson, 
Roettiger, Ward and Selby, and First Lieut. Spencer, all 
of the Quartermaster or the Veterinary Corps. 

Very ancient is medical science for veterina (beasts 
of burden.) Early Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, all studied 
it, and Hippocrates, the most celebrated physician of an- 
tiquity, born 460 B. C, esteemed it of sufficient importance 
to leave, among his sixty medical works, a treatise on 
equine disorders. Yet Hippocrates was nineteenth descend- 
ant of ^sculapius, a physician so great that he was deified 
as God of Healing. You can see his Caduceus in his 
statue arms today. The Veterinary Corps bear it, with 
V upon the staff. 

Just 150 years before Capt. Hinckley was graduated 
from the Chicago Veterinary College, the first was estab- 
lished at Lyons, France, under the King's patronage. 

The Veterinary Corps has gained greatly in import- 
ance during the war. Owing to automobiles, horses had 
grown scarce, and because of tractors, so had mules. Both 
are becoming very valuable to the government. There are 
some places in which they cannot be supplanted by motors. 
Horses do the showy, quick work ; they are proud and 
fearless, but not so enduring nor patient as mules, require 
better food and more care. But, as in other things, war 
is showing the best uses for all. 

Horses and Mules are mustered in at the Remount 
very much as men are at the Depot Brigade. Upon un- 
loading at the railroad siding, which accommodates five 
cars, all animals are carefully examined. If sick they are 
sent to the hospital; if injured, to the operating rooms; 
if well, turned into the paddocks, of which there are 
twelve adjacent. They are quarantined as carefully as 
men, and receive their "shot" for glanders and their 
"uniform" brand of U. S. service, in the dipping vat. 
approached by a narrow runway at each end. 



CAMP LEWIS 



479 




THE DIPPING VAT 



Operating rooms are four, and as many as twelve 
horses a day have gone upon the table. Everything is as 
clean and sanitary as in an up to date hospital for men. 
The operating table is shaped like a woman's sewing lap- 
board. It stands upright till the horse is securely fastened 
to it by broad canvas bands which pass through holes in 
the table. He is blindfolded, for horses are as nervous as 
people. The table is covered with canvas and the animal, 
while unable to move any part, is not uncomfortable. Then, 
by means of a windlass, the table is tilted and laid flat, 
being moved to right or left like a turn-table. The ani- 
mal is chloroformed from a leather nose-bag. It usually 
requires a pound of anaesthetic, but one extremely nerv- 
ous horse took two pounds, and it was ten minutes be- 



480 THE NINETY-FIRST 

fore he passed under its influence. Pretty expensive that, 
with chloroform high and rare. Still, as the doctor said, 
"Horses are lots scarcer than men." 

Animals are shaved about the operating area and dis- 
infected with iodine just as other patients are, and iodine 
is so scarce that at Base Hospital it is recovered from the 
sponges to use again. The surgeon stands within the half 
moon cut into the table. His instruments are disinfected. 
If necessary, the horse patient is slid off upon a "stone- 
boat" and dragged to the hospital. 

A huge cream-colored mule brings sick horses 
in a special ambulance from any part of camp, and is 
suitably proud of his size and importance. He can easily 
draw two horses, the stretcher, and the ambulance in which 
they lie. His name is Cutie. 

Wishing to see how an animal was placed upon the 
table. Corporal Scott said he would have Socks show. 

Socks was the horse that dragged the blankets to his 
owner. Nobody at the Remount really owns a horse, it be- 
longs to the government, but Capt. Jackson believes in 
allowing every man, and horse, to love his own — so 
Corporal Scott went to the corral and snapped his fingers, 
and Socks ran over and followed the corporal like a dog to 
the operating room, where he went through the rehearsal 
readily. He had done it before. 

Lieuts. Sandberg and Selby are noted horse surgeons, 
say others at the Remount. They have been very successful 
with something usually considered fatal. Poll Evil, gener- 
ally due to bruise, and which causes necrosis of the liga- 
ment the whole length of the neck. Animals return for 
fresh dressings to the table. The first time, says the 
Lieutenant, they are nervous and shiver, but after that 
they understand the relief and readily await adjustment. 

There are six hospitals with "beds" for one-hundred 
patients each. Contagious cases are isolated. Charts are 
kept by the Veterinary nurses, and every animal is tagged. 
The only thing that is not done in our best hospitals is 
putting up powders in newspaper. Sergt. Keefe does it 
all day, but weighs them carefully for all that. Between 



CAMP LEWIS 481 

9000 and 10000 horses have been supplied with medicine 
from the Remount, sixteen camp Veterinarians prescribing. 

After the animals leave the hospital they are kept in 
corrals for the sick and, later, in others devoted to con- 
valescents. There is plenty of room in the 400 acres be- 
longing to the Remount, the prettiest part of camp. 

If horses are well, they are trained as soon as they 
are out of quarantine in "bull pens." In all large pictures 
of the camp you have seen them, looking like six gigantic 
wash tubs standing together. The walls of these slant 
back slightly, so that wild horses cannot crush their 
riders' legs against the sides, a favorite trick. This first 
riding furnishes thrills enough for a dozen moving pictures 
and Roundups. After the worst is over, the horses are 
ridden in a larger pen with only the corners rounded. 
When thoroughly trained, they are put to work in the 
Remount or camp, or shipped to other points or to France 
as needed, just as men from the Depot Brigade are as- 
signed to Companies here or elsewhere. The Remount 
is not a part of the Division either, nor even, in a sense, 
of the camp, but is directly under government control. 

All the buying is done by Lt. Col. G. W. Winterburn 
at Fort Keogh, Miles City, Montana, and he is 
superior officer over the Remount. His men have shipped 
horses from thirteen Western States to this Auxiliary. 
Mules are principally brought from California where they 
are largely used around Sacramento. It is significant that 
the Remount could furnish enough bays for 1259 of 
the 346th Field Artillery, matched blacks, and sorrels 
enough for other bodies. Mules are recruited from grays 
as much as possible, for nature has camouflaged them so 
that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the 
ground they cover when they carry ammunition to gun- 
ners, or bear Engineers' material. 

There are a number of schools in the Remount which, 
incidentally, educate both men and animals. The first 
is the Horseshoers' with recitation rooms of forty-eight 
forges, and a course of four months. When a man takes 
his degree from this college, he surely is an adept, for 
many of the animals he shoes have never worn them. 



482 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Some, in fact, are so wild that they rear upon their 
haunches, strike with their fore feet, lunge upon their 
sides, bite, scream. These are put into the stocks. Even 
then one man-killer kicked for fifteen minutes before he 
could be trussed up, kicked so fast that, as one shoer 
put it, he looked like a gigantic humming bird. The horse 
is lifted from the floor and the foot to be shod is fastened 
to an adjustable steel stanchion. In these stocks a horse 
is humanely held, and the man is safe. 

Shoes are always put on cold, and are as carefully 
fitted to the foot as any fine lady's. In fact, in this great 
equine shoe-shop, all shoes are practically custom-made, 
despite being selected by size, for every pair is shaped 
exactly to the foot. Pair! Yes; fore feet are different 
from hind feet. Shoes are beaten into shape upon the 
glowing forge quite as Vulcan fashioned his, except that 
he bent a straight rod. He too , understood healing, and 
likely, the preventive connection between a hoof pared to 
the quick, corns, ill-fitting shoes, and diseases of the hoof: 
probably taught his helpers as the four expert instructors, 
each with two assistants, do at the Remount. At any 
rate, Capt. Hinckley, under whose charge this school is, 
does, lecturing upon hoof and leg. Students must know 
every nerve, muscle, ligament, in their part of the horse 
or mule, and pass written examinations upon all phases 
of the subject, before diplomas are awarded them. The 
practical work is in chapters of a horse a day, shod. 

All organizations send students to this school. The 
insignia is a horseshoe upon the sleeve. 

Wonder when horses were first shod, wonder why 
horse shoes have always been considered lucky? Of course 
when Cortez shod his mare with solid silver it would be 
lucky to pick up a shoe she had cast but — probably it 
saved much labor even if it were an iron shoe, before 
coal and coke were known. At any rate, some automobil- 
ists will stop a car and seize upon a horseshoe, rare nowa- 
days, though every stable used to wear one over the door, 
and the papers upon this desk are weighted by a rusty 
find. 



CAMP LEWIS 483 

After animals are gentled and shod, they attend school, 
with packers as fellow-students. Here the former learn 
to carry 225-pound packs and to follow the bell-mule, 
while the latter learn to fit the saddle to the back and 
pack and strap it. There are seventy-five in this school. 
The Aparejo pack is a roof -shaped wooden contrivance 
upon which the load is balanced and which is stuffed 
underneath with hay to conform to the mule's back. If 
an animal has a sore back it is legitimately blamed upon 
the packer, for if properly done the mule never minds 
his load, which is, officially, 225 pounds. This Aparejo 
pack is used all over the Southwest, across the desert and 
over the mountains, and experts are teaching it at the 
packing schools of the "Wild West" Remount. So success- 
ful is it, that the entire army will copy it. I have seen 
burros in our Southwest all but hidden under the loads 
they carried with ease by reason of this scientific adjust- 
ment. 

Both packers and packed are trained with numbered 
pieces of ammunition, wagon parts etc., and mules and 
packs are numbered, so that all are accustomed to one 
another. Beside this, the mules are taught to follow the 
leader. Almost falling upon one another, burros used 
to bring my heart into my mouth on steep trails in 
the Rockies. Mules soon learn to know their own bell. 

I could hardly tear myself away from that corral, 
feeling that at last I had broken into Society, for Mrs. 
Belle Mule, with a half-veiled glance at us, quite like a 
society leader wearing a rope of pearls about her neck 
instead of a bell rope, would start off" on some fool's errand 
and the rest would slavishly follow the leader, even to 
curling their lips superciliously or switching their trails — 
I mean tails. Mules are very human. 

But there is something which cannot be trained our 
of mules, their dangerous bray, therefore, this June, West- 
ern veterinarians operated upon a mule, removing a 
cartilage in his nose. This seems to have been successsful, 
though he may recover his voice; if so, the tail muscles 
will be severed, since no mule can bray without raising 
his tail. 



484 THE NINETY-FIRST 

It remains to be seen, however, if, in quieting him, 
they have not broken his spirit, for the mule admires his 
voice far more than we do. Still, he has his kick left, and 
nothing but amputating his hind legs will cure that. As 
it is doubtful if he could learn to walk upon two feet in 
time for this war, beside which even an Arapejo pack 
would then slide off, that scarcely seems feasible. Then, 
too, if this literal and lateral kick were removed, it might 
strike in, breaking out in another place, perhaps in his 
disposition. That would be too bad, for I have seen 
burros turned out after a long journey over the desert, 
and a climb over mountains, lick the moisture off a rock, 
eat anything else that happened to adhere to it, then 
bray from a full stomach and a contented mind, and be 
ready for an evening of pleasure tagging their society 
leader. 

Another school at the Remount is the Saddlers', where 
twelve men remain for a course of nine crowded weeks. 
Harness work is included, and men, trained, are returned 
to their units. The emblem is a saddler's knife which, in 
felt, looks much like a spread fan with a long handle. 
This knife is shaped exactly like an Esquimo woman's, 
or a chopping knife. 

There have been 6500 horses at one time at the Re- 
mount, and 650 teamsters have spent two months at school 
learning to care for them properly. All stable sergeants 
and wagoners are furnished camp organizations from 
there. The latter's insignia is a wheel. The farrier wears 
a horse-head, the mechanic, crossed hammers. Farrier 
used to mean, horse-shoer, a worker in iron, ferymm. 
All these have become experts in paying trades for use 
after the war. The "professional man" will be less com- 
mon then; man and manual will be more honorably 
coupled, and the present connection between men and 
menial will be lost. Oh, the war will bring many com- 
pensations — 

"It's coming yet, for a' that, 
That man to man, the world o'er 
Shall brothers be for a' that!" 



CAMP LEWIS 



485 



Capt. Jackson knew every man in his command and 
took an interest in everything. The beautiful Remount 
Assembly Hall was fathered by him. Battlemented without, 
like an ancient keep, the idea is carried on in the hall, 
which was designed by Andrew Doppee a Belgian, student 
at the Brussels Beaux Arts, and who as an Engineer 
worked upon the fortifications of Antwerp. The stone 




■ -wsgr^"** '«WP%«, -s t /. 



THE REMOUNT LIBRARY 



fireplace is beautiful. The wrought-iron andirons and 
fittings, suggesting halberds, and the artistic light fixtures, 
were all made in the Remount blacksmith shop : Vulcan 
was an artist in wrought iron. Appropriate pictures, 
most of them colored prints of cowboy scenes, riding, 
roping; mottoes, framed poems, one, I remember, Kip- 
ling's inspiring //, fine mounted heads, rustic boxes of 
flowers — all true horsemen love flowers — artistic every- 
thing. Comfortable chairs and tables, a branch of Liberty 
Library, and a small one of their very own including a 
copy of Rough Riders autograuhed by Theodore Roosevelt 
§33 



486 THE NINETY-FIRST 

"for his friend Dr. Jackson," and another by Maj. Gen. 
R. G. E. Leckie, homey all of it, no wonder the Remount 
men haunt the place and have clever programs almost 
every night. Think of the talent there! 

Over the high mantel, upon a background of logs, hangs 
a beautiful painting by the celebrated "cowboy artist," 
Russell. This is the letter which accompanied the gift, 
through his old acquaintance, Capt. Jackson, who showing 
it, drew attention to the careless hand-writing of the 
man, and to the beautiful lettering and little sketch upon 
the envelope, the work of the artist. 

Great Falls, Mont., December 8, 1917. 
Dear Captain Jackson: 

I am glad to kyiow that my kind of men- are delivering 
the goods. The boys I kneiv on the range long ago ivere 
rough on the outside but under the hide regular men. 

The cow puncher is the last of America's frontiers- 
men. The trapper, bidl-whacker, stage driver, mule skin- 
ner, have stepped into history. The cow puncher must 
soon take the same t7'ail, but like all others of his kind 
will not be forgotten by romance or history. He was part 
of the West that time can't ivipe out. If a plain's Injun 
wanted to say that a man was alright in sign language he 
made the sign for strong and heart — meaning that the man 
ivas brave, square and all that's good ifi a human. This 
sign tvould go for rnost of the coiv hands I know and these 
young men you have today are out of the same mold. 
I've known punchers to give a man the Sheriff ivas hunt- 
ing a fresh horse.. This aint according to laiv, but its 
friendship and the man that does it will die holding his 
flag. 

I am sending you the only cow puncher picture I have, 
punchers scari^ig cattle out of the brakes — called "Smok- 
ing 'Em Out." Hang it up and when you get tired of 
it or the Camp breaks, send it to some city where it can 
be sold and turn the money over to the soldiers in a ivay 
you think best. If you sell it, get $1,000 for it. That is 
the least I would take. 

With best ivishes to you and all the boys. 

Yours sincerely, 

C. M. Russell. 



CAMP LEWIS 



487 




488 THE NINETY-FIRST 

There are other interesting things at the Remount: 
a pair of superb silver spurs weighing over three pounds, 
with which a Villa bandit spurred his Death Charger over 
the Great Divide, so needed them no more; a piece of 
Zeppelin which dropped its driver into the Undiscovered 
Country, — this was sent the Captain by his sister. Miss 
Alice Jackson who has adopted forty war-orphaned French 
children. 

Also, a Remount blacksmith reproduced a weapon, 
if one might so designate something used against the de- 
fenseless, an iron about eight inches long, pointed, set 
with spikes, and used to despatch the wounded, found 
upon a German battlefield. 

Two wonderful Rodeos, three, were produced by the 
Remount. In December, the program included an old 
cowboy diversion, a package race. Ten men rode fiery 
horses to a goal, dismounted, opened wrapped bundles, 
donned whatever apparel or impedimenta they contained, 
and raced back. There was competitive Aparejo packing; 
there were range races in which the men must first catch 
the horses, then saddle, mount, and circle the track; relay 
races — everything. But all this is play for such horse- 
men as Camp Lewis' Remount boasts. 

The Remount staged the First and Last exhibitions 
of the Ninety-First at Camp Lewis. Their own arena, 
built for the former, was crowded for the latter, and the 
18,000 seated, looked upon nearly as many upon the grassy 
slope opposite. Capt. Jackson planned it as a demonstra- 
tion of the military efficiency attained by all animal- 
equipped units, for which the Remount had trained and 
furnished horses and mules — graduating exercises, so to 
speak, for Man and Beast, Division and Remount. Being 
ordered overseas before they came upon the stage, the 
big affair devolved upon Capt. Raeder, in command, wh^ 
managed it as if that had been his sole business. 

The program was carried out as planned save that 
the field ambulances could not appear owing to the mules 
being in quarantine; but of course that only served to 
make the performance more natural and home-like — 



CAMP LEWIS 489 

somebody was always quarantined. There was no lagging, 
either. Contestants were fairly crowded out of the field. 
Officers entered all events open to them and cheered the 
others — there was always close goodwill among them 
and you, was there not? Of course Capt. Cook helped, as 
he always does. 

Fully thirty thousand people enjoyed the spectacle, 
massed bands played, soldiers on the slope sang, the Di- 
vision Athletic Club was thousands of dollars richer, 
Companies took handsome trophies, and individuals won 
prizes of every sort to which Governors Bamberger of 
Utah, Alexander of Idaho and Houx of Wyoming; Mayors 
Rolph of San Francisco and Baker of Portland, among 
many, contributed. As usual, Portland was to the fore. 
Its Chamber of Commerce sent a Loving Cup, and its 
City Commissioner twenty dollars, bettered by five from 
their Mayor. The prizes ranged from a fifty-dollar Liberty 
bond from a Seattle restaurant to a briar pipe from its 
finest hotel. 

Naturally, the Remount itself took the majority of 
prizes. Setting up an escort wagon, for instance, was 
interesting to the crowed. Men driving, leaped at a signal 
from them, took them to pieces and put them together. 
There was a mounted courier dispatch, a machine gun 
drill, all taking on stern interest because of the feeling 
that this was to be hereafter a contest with life or death 
for first prize, health or wound for second, freedom or 
capture for third. Everything in the program was 
strictly military except the Cossack riding and the Roman 
race in which McDowell, Diest, Peabody and Barkley of 
the Remount took first and second, and Goodnight of 
Headquarters Troop and Binna of 181st Brigade Head- 
quarters, third. 

The sun shone encouragingly, and nobody was hurt 
nor robbed among the whole 80,000 who visited Camp 
Lewis, so said the Military Police, although 14000 autos 
entered the cantonment. 

Yes, it was a perfect day, that Sunday, except for 
those to whom it was shadowed by your departure, Ninety- 
First. Some of you left that very week. 



490 THE NINETY-FIRST 

Capt. Jackson insisted, though no one disputed it, that 
in the whole world no better horsemen ever assembled 
than at the Remount during the life of the Ninety-First, 
for the sufficient reason that there never have been better. 
He took back the pictures of several he had given for this 
book, saying that he would have them all, that not a man 
should be omitted, but he left so unexpectedly that you 
cannot now see many between these covers, and it is a 
pity to refer only to a few when there are scores. Never 
in one place have so many champions gathered, working 
prosaically, cheerfully responding even to — 

STABLE CALL 

Come to the stable all ye who are able, 

And give to your horses some hay and some corn; 
If you don't do it the Colonel ivill knotv it 

And then you will rue it as sure as you're boryi; 
Come then to the stable all ye ivho are able 

And give to your horses some hay ayid some coim. 

No other Division has the cowboy States to draw from, 
no other Remount than this Wild West. Both Division 
and Remount are accustomed to World Champions, in con- 
sequence. What will the clumsy Germans think when men 
like these rush down upon them? Sergt. Walter Kane — 
right end — and his brother Ray, also of the Remount, were 
riding inspection, buying horses for the Government. 
When we went in, Capt. Jackson wanted these "wonder- 
ful horsemen". Both resigned their lucrative positions, 
gave over their large ranch in Nevada to the manage- 
ment of another brother, and volunteered. Ray is called 
"Captain" because he is a private, as Mark Twain called 
his dog Spot because he had none, and Sergt. Kane is 
Beartracks. He assisted Sergt. Richardson in arena man- 
agement at the Remount's wonderful performance in 
Tacoma's Stadium 4th of July, where, as he said, were 
gathered men whom a million dollars could not have as- 
sembled in peace times. Next him is Earnest Winning, 
he was actually baptized both appropriate names. He 
won the title of champion bull-whip of the world. How- 



CAMP LEWIS 



491 




492 THE NINETY-FIRST 

ever, the only part of his name by which he is known 
is "Buckles." Roy Barkley, "Slivers", could ride a wind 
without injury, he was in the hippodrome race at the 
Stadium, and "Sandy Hutton," next, took part in "Hooli- 
haning" the steer, and in all the wildest riding. The end 
man is Elmer Teich, whose "proper name is Ten Shot, 
the best roper and rider in Montana," rather a big bill 
to fill, but on authority of Capt. Jackson — "Teich, German? 
No German gets a job here." He is a private at the Re- 
mount. He ran his own ranch at Sheridan where he sold 
$14,000 worth of cows last year. 

John Mama's Boy Bell has worked up to mess sergeant 
here, but managed his father's ranch at Cheyenne, Wyom- 
ing. Bell can rope and throw any bull that lives. As for 
the ranch, that has a world's record of 125 tons of — now 
what was that, something at $30 a ton — the last year 
before Mama's Boy broke away from home and into the 
Remount. 

It must be great fun "to see yourselves as others see 
yon," especially when you are doing such impossible feats 
as those riders and ropers do. The Pendleton Roundup 
pictures were shown one night at the Remount's Assembly 
hall and a number of the men who sat in the audience 
had that pleasure. Private Paxton Irvine, son of former 
United States Senator from Wyoming, was one of them. 
Young Paxton owns a $60,000 stock range at Douglas. 
Private "Art Burmeister was another whose ride in 
Roundup and film was the most sensational. He is shown 
wearing a superb silver belt, but he does not appear in 
it at the Remount when stable-boying. What he was given 
for one ride then would pay him here for a year. Another 
prominent figure in the picture was the "Calgary Kid" 
whose "maiden name" is Ora de Mille. He came down 
from Canada to volunteer for this notable Remount. His 
people own a ranch at Galgary, He specialized in driving 
the stage coach for Wild West pictures, so has not yet 
had a smash-up in the wagon train at the Remount. 
Joking aside, there has never been an accident at the 
Remount, and Capt. Jackson is proud of that record, says, 
and truly, that experts are careful. 



CAMP LEWIS 493 

A. M. McDowell and twin brothers are all there from 
the Crow reservation; "Shoat Eyes," "Dad" and "Jock," 
three riders great enough to be mentioned by the Captain. 
They own a ranch near Billings. As for Sergt. Donelson, 
he has discarded a horse as too easy to jump from in 
"bulldogging" a steer. At Miles City he did it from a 
racing auto and threw his steer in twenty seconds. At 
the first Camp Lewis Remount Rodeo he militarized this 
achievement by leaping from the tin bath-tub attached 
to a Headquarters motorcycle, going at American speed. 
His mother named Donelson, Rolla, but this has neces- 
sarily been shortened to "Oklahoma Slim." 

Mickey Millerick was a California bareback or surcin- 
gle Pony Express show rider and, with several others 
at Remount, moving picture rider. Purposely, "horse" 
was omitted. Mules, wild steers, zebras, bears, anything, 
though it seems chamois was not mentioned. However, 
a chamois leaping from rock to rock, up or down a moun- 
tain, would only give Millerick a broader view of life; he 
would mount, there would be no remount about it. 

Still further, from Headquarters at Wyoming and 
Washington Avenues, perhaps three miles, lies the Flying 
Circle, most remarkable ranch in the world. Its foreman 
is Sergt. Walter Kane, and probably every "hired man" 
on it individually owns a ranch in which that would make 
a nice, roomy paddock. George Wilson, for instance, high 
corporal, has 2000 head out at pasture on his place near 
Salinas, California. Russel "Little Ax" Farris, owns a 
ranch near Cheyenne. "Guinea" Maggine, Charles by the 
card, managed a famous Oregon ranch. Edward "Tyboe" 
W. Whitaker, rode United States inspection before he 
volunteered for the Remount from Utah, where his father 
owns a ranch near Ogden. Sergt. William Lockie is one of 
Lockie Brothers, Miles City, Horse and Cattle Company. 
Sergt. Bob Clark is one of the best horseman in Montana. 

There's a private of twenty-one crowded years at Re- 
mount, whose father is Col. Bullen of the British Hussars, 
whose uncle, Gen. Cavanaugh, is British Cavalry Com- 
mander, whose cousin. Gen. John Gough, holding the Vic- 



494 THE NINETY-FIRST 

toria Cross and Distinguished Service Order, was killed 
early in this war. His brother, Lieut. Bullen, is of the 
Royal Field Artillery. Just out of Harrow, the boy wanted 
to be a cowboy and drifted to Eaton's ranch out in Wyom- 
ing near the Indians of whom a Britisher dreams. Then 
he worked for three years on an even Western-er ranch 
in Australia, and now he is at the Remount while his kin 
are famous on the battlefields of France. 

At the Stadium Remount performance, which was the 
birthday party of Camp Lewis' first year, the pick c 
both riders and mounts was shown in a Wild West per- 
formance which can never again be staged, for soon after, 
many were gone where needed in the Titanic struggle over- 
seas. 

It was headed by the new officer in command of the 
Remount, Capt. H. C. Bayley of Virginia, who was buL 
twelve years old when he began to ride at horse shows. 
He and his brother three times won the national champion- 
ship government cup. He also rides to hounds and is a 
noted polo player. Capt. Bayley has made both high and 
broad record jumps, so that he must feel quite at hop 
among the Remount horsemen, though their riding is as 
different as their lives from his in Old Virginia. 

Capt. Raeder was general manager of this exhibition, 
and Sergt. Richardson, director. Beside the riders men- 
tioned, the Askins brothers, champions at the Miles City 
Rodeo last year, Private Baker, for two successive years 
winner of the world's bucking-horse contest at Fort 
Morgan, Colorado, Bell and Irvine, world's champion 
ropers at the Cheyenne Frontier Days' contest, Coleman — 
if there is a very best bucking-horse rider, considered by 
many that best. In the "We-wont-go-home-till-morning" 
race you will grieve to know that Wesley Deist was the 
most hilarious, in spite of his two sanctified names, and 
the added nickname of Silent. Even "Midget" Douglas, 
who has been a figure in Wild West Roundups for years, 
appeared, having been drafted a few weeks before. 

One of the most wonderful features of the exhibit was, 
however, the horses themselves, the understanding they 



CAMP LEWIS 



49^ 



showed in pursuing a wild steer and, when it was lassoed, 
in standing stock still, seemingly without signal of any 
kind, while their riders ran to the steer, grasped its horns 
and forced it by sheer strength to the ground. Until they 
dismounted, they were Centaurs indeed. Remember 
Centaurs were men of Thessaly, and, as the word implies, 
bull-killers, but so ceaselessly were those ancient cowboys 
in the saddle, so well did the ride, that horse and man 
seemed one, and the fable grew. 




However, everything in the Remount, from the men, 
the horses and mules, to Sergt. Richardson's goat, and 
his Airedale, ever on the alert to salute, is trained. The 
Sergeant, kindly, telling every man's triumphs but his 
own, is one of the world's great riders. Of the 482 at 
the Remount, he picked most of these mentioned, for the 
"Birthday party", beside Roth Clark, Harry Peabody, 
Norman Venable, Edward Aspsas, Frank Daniels and 
Virgil Absten, to mention them baptismally, to represent 



496 THE NINETY-FIRST 

that West of which they are a typical remnant, the bound- 
less, adventurous, dramatic but genuine West, antagonistic 
to everything for which the Hun stands, and, against him, 
and him only, the 

WILD WEST. 



CAMP LEWIS 497 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE FIRST — LAST 44TH INFANTRY — COL. E. N. JONES AND 
LIEUT. E. N. — A BENCH SHOW — OFFICERS WHO MOVED ON 
AND SOME WHO STAYED — CHAPLAIN KENDALL — AN 
ASSYRIAN, A SERBIAN, A GREEK, AN AMERICAN, AND AN 
INDIAN — SERGT. BIRD'S AMAZING JUMP — THE TWO ENDS 
OF AN ARMY FROM ONE CLUB A SELF DEMOTION. 

Probably no other than this verse in the Bible is 
implicitly believed by every man in an entire regiment, 
"The first shall be last and the last first," that regiment 
being the 44th United States Infantry. It was organized 
early in the Summer of 1917 at Vancouver Barracks, of 
volunteers only, men eager for immediate overseas service 
who thought "Regs" would sooner reach the Front than 
the National Army. Only attached to Camp Lewis when 
the 91st Division formed there, the 44th was never a 
part of it, patiently awaiting marching orders. The only 
ones who moved on were their officers, scarcely one of 
whom remains. Other bodies were ordered abroad from 
time to time, and finally the entire Division went overseas, 
but the 44th remained. It speaks well for the fiber of the 
enlisted men with it that they did not entirely lose spirit 
under these repeated disappointments. They had trained 
intensively, they were of Americans and the West more 
than any other regiment, not a man of them was drafted 
until some time after their arrival at Camp Lewis. A 
private spoke for others: "We enlisted to follow the 
fortunes of war but instead were followed by mis-fortunes 
of peace. It was the limit when they wished hundreds 
of aliens on us, picked green at that, but we're soldiers 
we — we don't even talk." 



498 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




COL. EDWARD N. JONES 



Although Col. Edward N. Jones did not rejoin the 
44th until November, he has remained with his regiment, 
almost the only officer to do so. He came from the 8th 
Infantry to organize his own at Vancouver Barracks. He 



CAMP LEWIS 499 

has seen longer service than any other Commander at 
Camp, having been graduated in the same class with Gen. 
Pershing from West Point, thirty-six years ago, but he 
is a younger man than the General, for he was but seven- 
teen when he entered the United States Military Academy. 
In those days candidates were first examined at a city 
in their own State and the successful contestant then went 
to West Point and was again subjected to a difficult exam- 
ination. If he failed to pass this, he had the mortification 
of returning to his home, and at his own expense. 

When, ambitious to enter this competitive examination, 
young Jones went to Selma, Alabama, not very far from 
the plantation upon which he was born, he had never been 
out of his native State. His father, a noted jurist, had 
followed the practice of Southern gentlemen in those days 
by erecting a small school-house upon his plantation, as- 
sembling the children of near-by planters, and bringing 
in a teacher. The young boy, small for his age, had had 
no other schooling but was ready for college when he 
entered this competitive test with a number of boys, all 
older, and prepared in city schools. An uncle urged the 
youngster to return for a visit, assuring him that he 
stood no chance with the others, but, to this day from 
that, man and boy was sure of what he knew. He re- 
mained and won. In fact, that was a family characteristic, 
judging from what has been accomplished by various mem- 
bers of the Welsh family from which they sprang. The 
Welsh seem to have so few names and them such common 
ones, — Lloyd, Williams and Jones almost exhaust the 
supply, that men must distinguish themselves to sound 
out. From before the Revolution, and during it, Jones 
did so sound, in fighting, in authorship, in law. A Jones 
owned large estates in Viginia and was repeatedly mem- 
ber of the House of Burgesses. From one, Peter Jones, 
Petersburg was named in Old Virginia. 

Lieut. Edward N. Jones was given his commission just 
in time to do some fighting against the Apaches and help 
round up Geronimo. Only Col. Jones and Gen. McDonald 
wear the red service ribbon at Camp Lewis. The former 



500 THE NINETY-FIRST 

was still Second-Lieutenant when troops were fired upon 
by the Sioux, resulting in the disgraceful Pine Ridge mas- 
sacre, between Christmas and New Years 1890-1, resultant 
upon the Ghost Dance troubles, after which Sitting Bull 
came to his merited end. A pipe bag belonging to this 
old scoundrel and some ghost shirts and paraphernalia 
used in that wonderful movement are in my own collection. 

It was upon this campaign that Lieut. Jones 
marched with his company, the thermometer registering 
forty degrees below zero the entire forty-two miles, to 
Fort McKinney. This, in reply to a young fellow of the 
44th, who, telling of the long hikes they take in that regi- 
ment to harden them for campaigning in France, said that 
one day they had just returned from a little stroll of 
twenty miles when he overheard the Colonel inquire of 
a young lieutenant, with no hint of irony in the tone, 
"fatigued?" It helps these green young National Army 
boys to know their older officers did it all, and much more. 
As for hikes, the 44th began with twelve miles. 

In the Cuban war, Jones was Aid to Gen. Randall. 
Then he went to the Philippines for five years, and saw 
some real fighting. The cities were peaceful but he was 
unwilling to remain so. He pursued Gen. Caillas so 
relentlessly that the latter set a price of $10,000 upon 
his head and posted the offer wherever he thought it 
unlikely Americans would see it, throughout the island. 
Quite a flattering price for bringing in one caput when 
you reflect how the head-hunters enjoyed the sport for 
its own sake. However, Col. Jones is still wearing a cap, 
in fact was Chief Quartermaster for nearly two years 
with Gen. Leonard Wood at Mindanoa after that. 

Not being Gen. Wood's Aid, there is not the slightest 
connection of ideas in the decision of the former's little 
son, years ago in Manila, when he and Frank Uavis, the 
361st Colonel's son, were forming their leaden soldiers 
for battle. Frank, as head of the Benzine Board, was 
about to cast out several bent and broken as unfit for the 
ranks, when little Judge-Advocate Wood said, "No; we'll 
just lean them against this post, they're good enough for 
Aids." 



CAMP LEWIS 501 

Jones unearthed plots concocted against our government 
in the islands by one of the other powers, whose consul 
thought it advisable to flee. Then he brought in another 
conspirator, with proof, only to be told that the man would 
better be dismissed, that international complications might 
arise. But Jones insisted that either the man was guilty 
or he himself for accusing him, and that one or the other 
must be tried, which was finally done, and the plotter 
sentenced to be hanged. He was only imprisoned, how- 
ever, and a general amnesty afterward freed him. 

That is a peculiarity of Col. Jones, he is as sure as 
Lord Macauley of what he knows. One day when the 
regiment was on parade, there was something about escort- 
ing the colors which did not satisfy the Colonel, who is 
a stickler for regulations. He complained to the Captain 
of the Company, who cited page and paragraph of the 
manual to prove that the ceremony had been correctly per- 
formed; for Col. Jones, though strict, has a reputation 
for justness not less than authority upon such procedure. 

"Tear it out," yelled the Colonel, "if that's what it says, 
tear it out, it's wrong." "And," added the relater proudly, 
"It was. Col. Jones knows what he's about, and every- 
body knows it." 

There have been of his family in every war of this 
Country, and the Colonel welcomed his only son, Lieut. 
Edward N., into this. Straight from graduation at West 
Point, he came to visit his parents and was given what 
might be called his coming-in party at the officers' hall 
of the 44th, all its officers and their wives receiving with 
Col. and Mrs. Jones, and a large number of guests 
dancing. There was a great birthday cake, too, for Lieut. 
E. N., Junior, was twenty-one, the age of Lieut. E. N., 
former, just after taking his commission. 

The band of the 44th is enough to make one danc^ 
anyway. For a long time, the regiment, expecting to go 
Across, did nothing to improve its surroundings, but 
finally erected the most artistic bandstand on t^e canton- 
ment. The foundation is octagonal, of crossed logs, steps 
of puncheon. The rail has 44th intermingled in varied 
§ 34 



502 THE NINETY-FIRST 

styles. Log pillars uphold a roof of saplings. Rustic 
flowers boxes and baskets make it gay. A twisted dead 
tree still serves to swing a sign inviting everybody to 
tri-weekly concerts, and twelve large and comfortable 
rustic benches encircling the green, repeat the invitation. 
These seats were made by the mechanics of every company 
of the 44th, in a Spring competition. The prize of ten 
dollars was awarded that made by Company H. It i? 
really beautiful, of scrub oak with the gray lichen and 
bark left upon it, Company letter and Regiment number 
set in as ornament to the back, and the whole pinned 
together in Dutch style. Company K's is a close second 
in beauty, with brown hazel branches forming a long 
graceful curve from its high back for its seat. Most of 
them, however, are artistic, and all comfortable to rest 
upon of an evening after coming in, tired and dirty, 
from the rifle-range. 

Capt. J. G. Platts has given the men talks upon astron- 
omy, for they must march by the stars at night, and 
upon map-making — they have an eight-by-fourteen map, 
for the day use. The 44th has specialized in battalion night 
work. Those wearing white upon their hats and arras 
are enemies to be sought out. 

The 44th came to Camp Lewis under command of Maj. 
Isaac Newell, now full Colonel, and long since gone from 
the regiment. Maj. Charles E. Reese followed the leadei 
in both respects, and is now Colonel in command of the 
School of Musketry, Fort Sill, Oklahoma — no wonder: he 
too, holds the rare Distinguished Rifle Shot Medal, third 
only, of those coveted medals won, to my knowledge, by 
ofllicers stationed at Camp Lewis this first year. Maj. 
W. J. Hartigan, of the 61st Infantry, is in France. 

As for Captains, Huston, All-American football player at 
West Point, went to Fort Leavenworth, Kenneth Halpine 
to Camp Beauregard, Harold Dabney, now Major, to the 
76th Infantry. All these were Regular army men, West 
Pointers. A present Captain, J. C. Baker, would have 
been of them had he not disagreed with the traditions of 
the Military Academy. However, he informed his father. 



CAMP LEWIS 503 

Colonel of a Texas regiment, that if he, J. C, didn't wear 
leather leggings and ride a black horse, it would be be- 
cause they were not longer made nor bred. His leggings, 
you observe, are leather, and, being Adjutant of the 
regiment and so of the staff, he already rides his black 
horse, although if it were not for his ability, he would 
be awaiting one more rank to mount him. 

Capt. R. K. Smith is another Colonel's son, retired — 
the Colonel, decidedly not the Captain, — and Supply 
Captain Reade M. Ireland is a nephew of Col. Ireland 
who went to France upon Gen. Pershing's Staff. There 
are a number of Michigan men in the 44th. First-Lieuts. 
Ireland and Lankaster are of them, sent from Fort Sheridan. 

Some of the 44th Infantry say that Chaplain Kendall 
should drop his first name, John, in favor of Truman, 
his descriptive second. He was born in Wisconsin, to 
which state his grandparents came in the '50's„ and where 
Grandth'r Kendall put in thirty years of missionary 
ministry. 

The chaplain is a graduate of Lawrence College, same 
State. He entered the ministry in 1898, enlisted in the 
Wisconsin National Guard, in 1908, was commissioned 
chaplain and Captain of the 2nd Infantry three years 
after, mustered into United States Service in 1916, into 
the Regular Army as First-Lieutenant, September 12, 1917, 
and assigned to the 44th. 

He has taken much interest in the club-house, where 
a branch of Liberty Library is housed, where there are 
card, billiard and pool tables, desks with 44th Infantry 
stationery, a piano, a rest room for women, for it is a 
long way to Liberty Gate — and a hard wood floor for 
dancing. How odd it would have seemed in a recent past 
for a Methodist elder to be managing dancing parties ! 
He would have been "churched." Instead, Epworth Church 
has adopted the 44th. 

The men have contributed to a fund which pays bus 
fare both ways for those invited to their dances and 
their chaperones, although the rate, as with the Artillery 
buses for the same purpose, was raised for their benefit. 



504 



THE NINETY-FIRST 





CHAPLAIN JOHN T. KENDALL 



In passing, the bus service to and from tlie city has, from 
first to last, been a sore subject. Soldiers have wasted, 
all told, days of precious time standing in the rain in 
a two or three-block line waiting for ramshackle vehicles 
to take them, and their entire day's pay, for the trip. 
Here's hoping the next Division will be better provided for. 
Beside Lieut. Kendall, another of this regiment is from 
Lawrence College, Wisconsin, though he was born the 
world away, in Kurdistan, not far from ancient Nineveh. 
Lazarus George first attended the little rural school at 
Baz, then, for three years, the Presbyterian College at 
Urmia, Persia. He was upon a furlough when Dr. Coan, 
president of that college, visited this Coast and Camp, so. 



CAMP LEWIS 505 

to George's great disappointment, he missed seeing his 
former professor. 

Lazarus George enlisted from Chicago, and is now 
corporal in Company B. He is an Assyrian. When Rus- 
sians and Kurds abandoned the Allies, they left his people 
to the tender mercies of the Turks. All of his family and 
relations were massacred except his mother and one other 
who escaped from the country but doubtless died of 
starvation, as he has never heard from either. It was the 
knowledge of their suffering that made the rug-merchant 
volunteer as soldier: the native of a country covered with 
wonderful ruins of a high civilization, extending as many 
centuries B. C. as this baby one of ours lies A. D., to 
join men of America against an uncivilized foe. When 
this war is won, he will return to the land of his fathers 
as missionary of new faith and new works. 

Another foreigner in the 44th who volunteered, and 
who already wears two stripes upon his sleeve, is Bogo 
Popich, Serbian. He, too, has a debt to pay, not only to 
his oppressed yet dauntless land, but to hated Austria. 
Of two brothers, drafted into the army there, one was 
killed in action, the other basely murdered. Jumping 
contests were held in his regiment for a money prize which 
the despised Serbian won. The following night, Austrian 
soldiers robbed him of the money, dragged him from his 
tent, and beat him to death with the long loaves of black 
bread furnished the army. Bogo Popich was in this land 
of freedom but enlisted at once and grimly awaits his 
chance. 

That jumping contest recalls anotther in which a 44th 
man made an amazing running trench leap of nineteen 
feet-three inches at the Division Meet, not in trunks, mind 
you, but in full uniform and field shoes, not carrying 
propelling M^eights, as Popich's brother did, but a gun 
and bayonet weighing nearly ten pounds. Perhaps his 
name helped him, Bird, Sergeant Bird, 

More than that, he was obliged to hold his alighting 
position, to pierce a dummy lying upon the ground, with- 
draw his bayonet after the leap and thrust it into an 
imaginary standing enemy. 



506 



THE NINETY-FIRST 




The 44th is very proud of taking third place in this 
Meet, and with reason. As was said, the regiment is 
not a part of the 91st Division, so it was somebody's 
omission that they were not informed they were expected 
to take part in the contests. Other regiments practiced 



CAMP LEWIS 507 

all their free time for weeks, but this, which beside was 
not then at war strength, did nothing along those lines. 
Not until Retreat the night before the tournament, was a 
Bulletin from Headquarters read informing the 44th that 
it would compete at 1:30 next afternoon, trench-jumping, 
relay race etc. etc. 

Dismay, and something blacker, forsooth, clouded 
their faces, and tongues ran relay and squad races till 
Taps. But Col. Jones rose to the occasion, boast the 
boys. He ordered the regiment massed at seven next 
morning and himself addressed the men. He told them 
they should have the entire morning to achieve what others 
had weeks to prepare for. He suggested that very Com- 
pany choose its athletes, and they, leaders, for intensive 
training. This they did, with two of the results as above. 

"Yes, and we should have had first instead of second 
place in squad drill, everybody concedes that. It was 
given out that no applause would be allowed to distract 
contestants, and there was none until our squad did such 
perfect work that the onlookers applauded and one of 
our men lost his head — or his foot — Oh, but we were 
sore !" this from a man of the 44th, as you have guessed. 

An athlete who for a time acted as physical director 
at the near-by Y is Private Frio of B, who was for three 
years featherweight champion of New England. He was 
traveling with a circus when he decided that a pup tent 
was the big one, and enlisted while West. 

Private W. E. Stevens of F hails from Cheyenne, 
Gen. Pershing's home, where a star upon the service flag 
of St. Mark's Episcopal Church, says Stevens, shines 
among the 300, for Pershing. Private Stevens of the 
44th, and Gen. Pershing, head of the United States army 
in France, belong to the same club in Cheyenne, Wyoming. 

One Company of the 44th, too soldierly, being Regulars, 
to comment, looks perfectly blank if by any chance one 
touch upon phychiatry. The reason is a Greek, who no 
longer belongs. The man never spoke, not even yea or 
nay, till it got on a fellow's nerves; it was fair uncanny. 
This went on for months, till one day he suddenly opened 



508 THE NINETY-FIRST 

the floodgates of his speech and inundated his messmates. 
He talked from Reveille to Taps and from Taps to Reveille. 
He proposed the most preposterous schemes, discussed 
idiotic inventions. First he was disciplined, next he was 
taken to the infirmary, finally he was brought before the 
Psychiatric Board and dismissed from the service. 

Suddenly and permanently restored to normal, P ■ 

is now steadily employed, at good wages, at a local ship- 
yard, ''but what can you expect of a Greek ?" 

On the contrary, there's an American private with a 
large auto business at Bellingham. Whenever he has a 
day off, he buys a machine, runs himself home in it, sells 
the car, and comes back to Camp Lewis by train. Then, 
again, there's First Sergeant John Walker of Headquarters 
Company, who enlisted last June "hoping to go quick." 
He became Sergeant-Ma j or of the regiment, but demoted 
himself because he "wanted to get back into the line and 
a fighting chance." He'd had enough office business in the 
big smelter in which his father is partner. But then he 
is not a Greek, either, though not so far back an American 
as Jeff" Secena, also of Headquarters Company, a Chehalis 
Indian who enlisted in Salem, Oregon. 

Walker is not the Sergeant who has recently been 
training recruits, and who is still out of breath. Double 
time, it should be explained, is top speed, while quick is 
only a dog trot. The sergeant had ordered double and, 
seeing a friend he wished to speak to, called "quick." 
Instead of slowing up, the men, eager to do their best, 
started off at a pace to win a race, and the sergeant, who 
is stout, "lost ten pounds catching his men. Wish he had 
the ordering us to France." 

Well, the first shall be last. 

But 

the last shall be first, 44th. 



CAMP LEWIS 509 

Aftrr |ou 2jfft 

You remember the 1st Infantry were at Murray await- 
ing your departure. Well, commanded by Lt. Col. E. A. 
Shuttleworth, they entered your barracks the very day 
you vacated them, though their Pioneer Company, under 
Capt. Meriwether Lewis, with Clarke, four sergeants and 
twenty enlisted men, broke the trail in 1803. It took 
the regiment a long, long time to reach here, but you 
see it is old, the oldest in the United States, born in June, 
1784. They had celebrated the first Fourth of July 
in the new Nation, and they celebrated the first in the new 
cantonment. Pity you were not here for the Birthday. 

As in many a family, the youngest was first to break 
the home circle and go out into the world: so you. Some 
of you were but boys, yet your unlived college days lie 
long behind. Suddenly you are men, gone upon a terrible 
business. 

Some of you wedded the women you love before you 
went, resolved, so you said, to seal them to that future 
which you were sure you would return to share. And 
many of those brides, such girlish brides, are bearing 
your absence and your little ones at the same weary time, 
but very bravely, be sure you realize that. Winning the 
greater glory, yours is the lesser courage. 

And some of you left little curly-heads behind. Their 
sleepy eyes sometimes close in the midst of their prayer 
for you "away, 'way off in Fwance," but She finishes it, 
or rather carries it on to you. Other women we had all 
thought hard, or rattle-brained, absorbed in trifles — and, 
indeed, they were: you suspected, perhaps even knew it — ■ 
are putting the little ones to bed themselves now, every 
night, to the wondering joy of the children. You should 
hear their unwonted prayers, but very likely you do. 
Messages by wireless from the soul are picked up clearly 
even amid the dim of battle. 

A few of you left older children who are back at 
school, studying hard to do you credit, making no trouble 
for mother and grandmother, they want me to tell you. 



510 THE NINETY-FIRST 

trying to take your place, though of course that is im- 
possible, no one in the world can do that, no one ; but 
they are trying to be a comfort. They are quieter than 
they used to be, graver than perhaps you would like to 
see them, but not moping, you understand, just standing 
by the women you left to care for them, or was it to be 
cared for by them? No matter, it is working both ways. 
It would make you proud to hear what Paul and Pauline 
say of their soldier father. At least you should be proud, 
but perhaps — no, of course not, it cannot be that it makes 
you ashamed. 

As for you elder, ranking officers, whose sons fight 
with you at the Front, leaving your women folk doubly 
bereft and doubly proud, they would be insufferable in that 
pride were they not humbled by the loneliness. But you 
must hear only how brave they are, every whit as brave 
as you across the sea bearing the leadership of this great 
Last War for Peace. 

And so, from the wee baby who has not yet come wail- 
ing into this sorrowful world, from the dear little imps 
who laughed when you went, and the elders who smiled 
till your trains pulled out, to the dear old people who "go 
softly all their days," we are loving you, longing and 
praying for you, believing in you, proud of you, working 
hard and waiting hard for You. 

In our language there is, unfortunately, no word of 
farewell, which, like an revoir or hasta la bueta, presages 
happy return; so we upon the watchtower in beloved 
America, light you this beacon, and throw its gleam across 
sea and war, signaling — 






W LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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